Royal Losers
by WindTreesandStars
Summary: When the school board at McKinley refuses to let Kurt bring the date of his choosing to the Junior Prom, Rachel comes up with an alternative plan. What happens when members of the glee club realize that there's more than one way to enjoy their prom.  A/U
1. Chapter 1

**Royal Losers**

_AN: Based on spoilers from RM at Paleyfest 2011 saying that Kurt would have difficulties around attending Prom in a storyline that is ripped right out of the headlines, and his earlier comments that he would like to see Kurt & his boyfriend be able to be crowned King & King at their Prom._

_For people who track Glee episode parallels, and assuming the Prom episode is Ep. 20, it will parallel "Theatricality" from the first season, the Lady Gaga episode when Kurt and the Glee kids were bullied for staying true to who they are._

_Nothing belongs to me and I have no connection to the show _Glee_ or anything or anyone connected with it whatsoever; I'm just an avid and appreciative viewer._

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"I'm sorry, Schue, it's out of my hands; the Board has decided."

"But Figgins," Will said again, not yet giving up on a battle he feared was lost.

The principal spoke again. "The Board has the final say in these matters, Schue; you know that. Personally, I don't see why a boy shouldn't be allowed to bring a friend instead of a date to the Prom, but some people in the community have been very vocal about it in the past. In previous years, people lobbied the school board members, and the Board said no. Some of these are the people who rent out space in our building and bring in income; we can't afford to anger them. There's nothing I can do. Tell Mr. Hummel I'm sorry, but the answer is no."

Will looked at Figgins, defeat and disbelief mixed on his face. The disbelief came from once again being faced with the man's seemingly willing blindness to the realities of the lives of McKinley High students. He thought the problem was with Kurt being refused the ability to purchase tickets to bring a _friend_ who _happened _to be a boy, rather than his _boyfriend_, to the Prom? Only Figgins could be that obtuse.

He _never_ would have believed it possible for the next thought to enter his brain, but for a moment, Will found himself wishing Sue was principal again. For all of her immense and intense flaws, she had been nothing but sympathetic and proactive when Kurt was being bullied last fall; he thought she might be an ally on this issue, if only out of fondness for her 'Sweet Porcelain.' But then Will remembered the one thing that was able to override Sue the last time after she had expelled Dave Karofsky: the decision of the school board to readmit him. Not even Sue Sylvester had been able to overcome the Board's power; it looked like Kurt would not be able to bring Blaine to the Prom after all.

Giving Figgins a disappointed look, Will left the principal's glass-walled office and walked toward the faces of the two glee club members anxiously waiting to hear the outcome of his attempted intervention. As he emerged, they could read the principal's answer on his face, and their faces transitioned from anxiety to anger. Before they could ask a question, Will put a hand on the shoulder of each girl and moved them down the hall toward the choir room, saying heavily, "Come on, we need to go tell Kurt."

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Rachel was furious, furious with a righteous anger, and a furious Rachel Berry was something before which ordinary mortals should move in fear and trembling. This _couldn't_ be the final answer; it just wasn't fair! Sure, she was learning, slowly and painfully, that life isn't always fair, but this was different—it was pure prejudice, and it could not be allowed to prevail. Looking over at the expression on Mercedes' face, Rachel saw the same outrage. Mr. Schuester had been wearing his hopeless face when he gave them the news, but, as Rachel had always believed, just because her glee club director thought a matter was settled _didn't_ mean it was over, and Mercedes agreed with her that they couldn't let this one rest.

Of course they'd known that there would be some problems to overcome when Kurt decided to return to McKinley with no official school policies on anti-bullying or discrimination having changed. They anticipated trouble with Karofsky _(Kurt wouldn't tell Rachel and Mercedes what he had done to get Karofsky to leave him alone; she suspected Santana had helped out in some way, but neither of them would admit to anything, saying only that it was taken care of and not to worry about it.)_ But it had never occurred to them that something as innocent as going up to the sales table to buy their Junior Prom tickets for the dance in three weeks would hand Kurt such a metaphorical punch to the gut. They were taken totally by surprise when the class officer in charge told them people could only bring dates of the opposite gender to Prom and stuck to that, in the face of all of Rachel's (_very_ vocal) protests, saying it was the policy of the school district.

Kurt's face was nearly impossible to look at, because it brought back memories of those horrible weeks before he transferred to Dalton and left them behind. It was true that incredibly good things had happened because of his time with the Warblers, and Rachel was over-the-top thrilled that Kurt's romance with Blaine had blossomed into a real relationship. Even suffering from her own shattered heart, she couldn't help feeling uplifted and happy every time she saw them together. They were still caught up in the roseate haze and daze of new and first love, and if anyone deserved to be fully enjoying that blissful state it was Kurt, who for so long had been far lonelier than even she had been when it came to romance.

What thrilled her even more, though, about Kurt's time away from McKinley was the friendship that had grown so quickly and become so deep between her and Kurt. Over the course of the past three months, he had become her closest confidante and best friend—the kind of friend she had always dreamed of having and, before him, had never found.

Her friendship, or whatever it was now, with Finn was a different type of relationship altogether, suffused always, it seemed, whether dating or not, with love and longing. Or, at least, that's how it inevitably _had_ been for _her_. That's how, before an earth-splitting sound of silence in the nurse's office on Valentine's Day had changed everything, she had _thought_ it was for _him_, too. Maybe she had been wrong about all of that. Maybe, because she had longed so much to find somebody to love, she had constructed a fiction that she was loved in return. Maybe, for him, it had only ever been about admiring her talent and about having someone around so he wouldn't be alone. Even the first time they kissed, he had run away from her and back to Quinn; maybe it had always been about them—the quarterback and the cheerleader, the pair everyone expected, the couple who seemed to make sense. Maybe she and Finn had never had it going on, and she had only imagined there was something real in the present that was creating a foundation for the future.

Since Finn and Quinn started openly dating, Rachel wasn't sure if there was anything at all left between them. She was being scrupulously careful about keeping out of the new (_or should that be old?_) couple's way, trying to limit her interactions with Finn to official glee business, conscious at all times to act solely as a co-captain and nothing more. Her songs, she knew now, she could write on her own; she'd found (_or had forced on her_) the key to accessing her pain. And as much as a part of her desired to keep fighting with the full-on intensity of Rachel Berry when wanting something (_everything_) too much, she made up her mind to try to break out of the self-destructive carousel on which she kept riding around, to give up trying to snatch the brass ring that was Finn Hudson and the dream of happy-ever-after. She missed him; she _really_ missed him. But she had Nationals to focus on, and other friendships (_finally_) to maintain, so she tried to let those fill the Finn-shaped hole in her life; much of the time, she thought she was doing a pretty good job of it. And Kurt was a huge part of the success of her efforts to move forward.

With Kurt, Rachel felt like she'd _finally_ found the BFF/girlfriend type of friendship she'd seen and envied so much in others but couldn't ever seem to be a part of herself. They could talk about anything. They had epic verbal battles when they tried to prove that one of their idol's (Barbra for her) interpretations of a Broadway standard was more stunning than the rendition of the other's idol (Patti for him). And while Rachel knew it was crazy, she couldn't keep from wondering if Kurt had somehow, some way had a role in persuading Stephen Sondheim to put the kibosh on Barbra Streisand's remake of "Gypsy", lest Barbra's superior talent wipe the admittedly excellent, but still not Barbraesque, portrayal of Mama Rose by Patti LuPone out of human memory.

He was still snarky and insulted her wardrobe on at least a tri-daily basis, but Rachel was learning to hold her own in verbal exchanges; rather than letting the insults get her down or cause her to retreat into false perkiness, she developed a panoply of her own insults to hurl back, always starting with variations on the theme of why she would even dream of trusting the fashion sense of the creator of the Sad Clown Hooker look. When he'd complain to her that she was too self-absorbed and too much of a drama queen, Rachel would merely reply with an overly sweet smile that it took one to know one.

And Rachel and Kurt both dreamed big dreams; they'd talk for hours, eagerly planning out a fabulous and fantastic future when they would descend upon New York City and make it their town. They had already arranged to go around together during any free time they had when in New York for Nationals to check out colleges: Julliard (at Rachel's insistence), Parsons (at Kurt's insistence), NYU's Tisch School of the Performing Arts, and Columbia. They had even tentatively mentioned, once or twice, the possibility of sharing an apartment together during college if _(when)_ they both made it to the city.

It was possible that they'd have become close friends even if Kurt had stayed at McKinley; when they sang their duet together last autumn, they had already been taking the first tentative steps forward into friendship. Becoming Kurt's friend had been one of Rachel's goals back then—partly because she knew he was important to Finn and she recognized how likely it was that the two boys would end up being brothers. If Kurt was going to be a big part of Finn's life, well, then, Rachel thought he would also end up being a big part of _her_ life—her step-brother-in-law, she had dreamed. Very quickly, however, she had come to relish being Kurt's friend for Kurt's sake, and the friendship's sake, alone. Rachel knew she had been right in what she told Kurt when inviting him to sing Barbra & Judy's masterpiece mash-up duet: they were a lot more similar that either had initially been willing to admit.

So maybe they'd have become friends with each other anyway, even if he'd stayed at McKinley the whole time. In what she fully recognized as an amazing self-development, Rachel actually seemed to be getting the hang of this "how to be friends with people" thing that she'd tried to figure out for so long. But there was no denying that Kurt's departure for Dalton, and the consequent cessation always competing for solos had helped to speed things along. When she learned Kurt was coming back to McKinley, Rachel was filled with elation tinged with only one fear—that she and Kurt would slip back into their roles as rivals and the friendship would be lost.

Being mindful not to let this happen dovetailed with Rachel's new resolve to keep her focus on the good of all the glee members and of the team itself; she had figured out that one of the major keys to being, and keeping, a friend was to squash her instinctive drive to _always_ push herself forward. She was astounded that it had taken her so long to figure this out, and just as astounded to realize that, once she stopped insisting on being in the spotlight _all_ the time, her teammates were more likely to suggest that she be the one to occupy it, and to even seem to like seeing her there. (_And she did still love to be there, so maybe this was another one of those things that she was doing both to be a better person _and_ to get what she wanted? Whatever; it was working, so why knock it!_)

She was shocked and overwhelmed when they chose her, _unanimously_, as the Regionals MVP;so shocked that, for the first time ever, she let down her guard before them and told them how much being one of them mattered to her. She'd hardly let herself hope that the times they'd done stuff together outside of school—going to hear Kurt at Breadstix, the party at her house—meant that she was being accepted as part of the group, because she'd fooled herself that way so many times before**. **But now, even though the award was partly given for her talent, they also chose her because she was a player who had helped the team, whose contributions and presence were valuable to the group. She could let herself believe they wanted her, at least partly, just for being herself; _they_ chose _her_, and she knew, absolutely, that she was a part of something special. The sting of Santana's "we all just pretend to like you" in the Sectional's greenroom (and of Noah's "we weren't friends before," and of Kurt's cutting response "what made you think that?" when she said she thought he wouldn't set her up because they were friends) was easing away.

Far from slipping back into their oppositional roles, Kurt and Rachel became closer than ever once he was back in the New Directions. He and she _did_ still compete for solos in glee (along with Mercedes, and Santana, and Brittany when she remembered that she was Brittany S. Pierce), but now they knew that the competition was grounded in solid respect for each others' talent. After all, they'd survived what turned out to be a sort of solo-off at Regionals (Kurt in "Candles" v. Rachel in "Get it Right"), and they found that they could survive being back in New Directions together. The entire glee club was overjoyed to have Kurt back, both because they had missed him and his acerbic wit and because they knew how much stronger they were going into Nationals with his voice on the team.

Mercedes, Kurt, and Rachel now sat as a unit in glee, the contra-tenor binding the two girls even closer in their burgeoning friendship. One day when an argument between them about the rival epic-ness of Whitney, Barbra, and Patti erupted into a diva-off threesome, Santana complained about the stage-stealing tactics of the "3Ds" and the name stuck. Sam, Artie, and Mike began to regularly call out to Rachel, "Hey, little D" and "Yo, mini-D" and "Hi, tiny D" when they saw her in the halls or cafeteria at school. They were the first non-insult nicknames Rachel had ever been given by someone other than her dads. While plenty of "Yentls" and "Hobbits" kept coming her way from Santana, there, too, she'd learned to give back as good as she got, and realized that her sometime-nemesis respected her more for fighting insult with insult.

Beyond happy to feel so included, both as one of the 3Ds and in the glee club at large, Rachel knew that being friends with Kurt was a huge factor in what made her a part of something special. It was as if, she thought, drawing on Broadway musical parlance for a life-metaphor, she and Kurt had, indeed, successfully defied the gravity of their old rivalry and animosity, with both refusing to let anything hold their friendship down. And watching the ways he stayed true to himself while still managing to get along with others became a model for her own social interactions with her peers.

Seeing the bleak, frozen expression on Kurt's face was killing Rachel. She hated to see him hurting, and she didn't want him to start regretting his decision to return to them, to think about going back to Dalton again. And, beyond the immediate damage this was doing to her friend, she was _determined_ that it was way past time for someone to start addressing the issue of homophobia at McKinley High School; what Dave Karofsky had been allowed to do to Kurt could never be allowed to happen to him, or anyone, again. Even if Kurt was the only out kid at the school, Rachel knew there were others (_Santana was one of those others, if what Rachel heard and saw when the ex-Cheerio sang 'Landslide' was real; and more than anything, Rachel knew how to understand and interpret the underlying messages conveyed in song_), and a public school should not be allowed to look the other way as its students were intimidated and bullied.

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Rachel insisted that Kurt and Mercedes come to her house that night for a sleepover so they could make plans for Operation Prom: KGB (KurtGoW/Blaine). She decided they would start by asking her dads for ACLU-related advice on what legal measures (or threats) were possible to use to get the school board to change its mind, but she was not prepared for her dads' response. Threatening action by the ACLU had _always_ worked, as long as Rachel could remember, so she had a hard time believing that her dads didn't think it would work this time.

"Sure, kids, you can go that route," her dad told them, after he and her daddy carefully listened to their story. "But I have to tell you, I don't think it will accomplish your objective. Just last year a similar case was filed against a school district in Mississippi that told a young woman named Constance she was banned from bringing her girlfriend to the Prom . . ."

Rachel's daddy then picked up the tale; the two Mr. Berrys frequently spoke as one, starting and finishing each others' sentences. When they were excited about something, they'd speak as quickly as Rachel in full-on rant mode, never losing a beat or a word as they tossed the conversation back and forth between them. But right now, their pace was slower, more ponderous and deliberate.

"The school also told Constance she had to wear women's clothing to the Prom if she went, because the school supposedly had a Prom dress code forbidding girls to wear tuxedos. And while the court held that these bans were unconstitutional because they violated the student's First Amendment freedom of expression . . . ."

Excitedly interrupting, Rachel exclaimed, "Well, that's it, right? We'll threaten to sue, tell them about this Mississippi Prom case, and that will force them to change the policy! Victory!" she caroled, pumping her fist in the air.

"It's not that simple, baby," her daddy sadly replied. "Constance was suing because the school's way of dealing with her request to bring her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo was to cancel the Prom altogether that year, saying the controversy was too disruptive and was interfering with the educational process and administration of the school. With the ACLU's help, she sued to try to force the school both to hold the Prom at all _and _to allow her to come on her own terms. So while the judge agreed that banning certain types of dates and clothes violated the Constitution . . . "

The other Mr. Berry finished, "He also said that school had every right to cancel the event altogether, because if no one could go, then Constance wasn't being singled out for discriminatory treatment. And the school successfully argued that there's no constitutional right to attend a Prom. If one is held, everyone has to be treated fairly, but it's OK for a school not to hold one if everyone is equally deprived of the event."

Mercedes asked, "So, there wasn't any Prom for the kids that year? The school decided to ruin it for everyone just to avoid treating Constance right? I bet the students loved that."

"Did they take it out on her, Mr. Berry and Mr. Berry?" Kurt inquired, with Rachel's question layering his, "What happened to Constance, daddy? Dad?"

"It was really hard on her, kids," said Rachel's daddy. "Students, parents, and townspeople in general were angry that the issue was raised in the first place and many were furious that Prom was being taken away from the kids. Someone started up a Facebook page to personally attack her for supposedly "throwing her classmates under the bus" because she "ruined" prom. I'm sure she knew that kind of reaction would occur; she must be a very brave and strong young lady to knowingly take on a fight like this. And," he said, looking at Kurt, "while I know how strong you are, you have to think about whether this is a fight you want to take on, because it could get ugly."

"Yeah," said Mercedes, "I can just imagine how people here would react if Prom was cancelled. They'd skip the Slushee's altogether and just force us to take up permanent residence in the port-a-johns."

"So that was it?" Rachel persisted. "The school cancelled the dance, people were mean and got away with it, end of story? Didn't anyone keep fighting to make the school do the right thing?"

"There was more to it, sweetheart," answered her dad. "After the court heard the case but before the judge ruled, the school district announced that some parents of Constance's classmates were going to sponsor a private Prom at a local country club, saying this Prom would be open to all kids. Part of the judge's decision said that the private dance would serve the same purpose as a school one, and that trying to force to school to hold a dance when plans for a substitute Prom were already underway would just be too confusing to those who might want to attend. And then . . ."

Kurt quietly said, "Let me guess: Cinderella wasn't allowed to go to the ball with her princess and live happily ever after?"

"Not exactly," said Mr. Berry. "Constance—in her tuxedo—and her girlfriend _did_ attend the privately sponsored Prom, and it was chaperoned by school officials. They were there, along with about seven other students from the school. Two of the other attendees were special needs students at the high school. It turned out that this was a "decoy" dance; just a dance to make it _look_ like the parents and school were keeping their word. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the school's students attended _another_ private dance, a Prom that was kept secret from Constance so that she wouldn't be there."

In the face of three identical gasps and dropped jaws, the other Mr. Berry concluded the story. "The school district eventually offered Constance $35,000 to settle the issue and agreed to follow a non-discrimination policy in the future. But Constance felt so uncomfortable in the aftermath, and suffered so much harassment from the community, that she transferred to another school to finish out the year."

Mercedes' and Rachel's eyes flew to each other and their hands instinctively reached out toward Kurt, as if to grab him and hold him in place, as the adult continued.

"In press statements, Constance said she felt like she came away with a victory, because her case led to the district being the first in Mississippi to actually adopt and agree to enforce a non-discrimination and non-harassment policy based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Prom didn't work out the way she wanted, and she suffered a social price, but she was glad to have made a difference and to have inspired people in other places to press these issues as well."

Rachel's daddy said very seriously, "Kurt, if that's what you want to do, we'll do everything in our power to help. We just want you to be fully aware of the possible—and likely—repercussions. It's something you'll want to talk to your dad about, too, and we'll be happy to answer any questions he may have about the legal issues. It's your call. And there's always a possibility that the school board here might react differently and agree to rescind their policy. If you say the word, we'll get right on the phone to the ACLU of Ohio to start things in motion."

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The 3Ds were dejectedly sprawled on Rachel's bed, the gloom on their faces seeming to cast a shadow across the brightly colored room. After saying he needed some time to think about what he wanted to do, Kurt thanked Mr. Berry and Mr. Berry, and, politely declining their invitation to play a round of competition karaoke, the three teens made their way upstairs and got into their pajamas in near silence. The notebooks, pens, markers, poster-board and other supplies Rachel had gathered in anticipation of preparing a protest demonstration were stacked in a corner, untouched. They talked for a while about the Mississippi case, with all three of them having a hard time believing that _parents _would fake a girl out like that and hurt her so badly. Mercedes said that maybe Coach Sylvester wasn't so unusually awful as they had believed. Rachel commented that it wasn't a surprise to have so many bullies in a school when parents acted this way. If prejudice and discrimination were just as rooted in adults, who were supposed to know better, what could possibly be done to change things? Two hours passed, and they were no nearer to coming up with a plan of action.

Finally Mercedes said, "There is another option, Kurt. You could be my date, and Rachel could go with Blaine . . ."

"Or Blaine could go with Mercedes and you could go with me," Rachel quickly interrupted, "if Blaine accompanying me would be awkward for you after he and I had our brief liaison earlier this year."

Rolling her eyes at Rachel, Mercedes finished her initial sentence. "And then, at the dance, you two could be together. We could take our pictures in a group and you could PhotoShop me and Rachel out of the picture later. If we spent most of the night all dancing together, Rachel and I could keep our eyes open for incoming chaperones and bullies when you and Blaine wanted to share a slow dance. Some of the other glee members would want to help, I know; Lauren and Puck on their own should be able to intimidate any troublemakers. It wouldn't be perfect, but at least you two would both be there, and _you'd_ know you were there as each other's date."

While Mercedes was speaking, Kurt moved up off of the pillows to sit up, ending with his back stiff and straight. Enunciating precisely and emphatically, he said, "Mercedes, while I thank you for the idea and the offer, just being in the room with Blaine at Prom is not the point. I want to be able to attend _my_ Junior Prom at _my_ school with a date of _my_ _own_ choosing. I want to be able to attend and to be proud of the person on my arm, not having to hide him or pretend I'm not with him. I want to be able to slow dance with him, and to kiss him. I know high school, in the full scheme of things, is just a purgatorial blip in the stream of a long, full life, but while I'm stuck in it, I want to be able to experience it like everyone else. I mean, Blaine and I should have the same opportunity as any other couple to run for Prom King and King."

"Technically, I think the winners have to both be McKinley students, so until you convince Blaine to transfer—and get on that, Kurt, because we could _really_ use his voice in competitions and we _don't_ want to have to go up against him next year—he wouldn't be able to run for Prom King." Kurt glaring at her, Rachel went on, "But I fully appreciate and agree with the principle of what you're saying. So, should I tell my dads . . ." Kurt cut her off.

"That's the problem; I just don't know. I'm not sure this is the battle I want to fight now. I've already tried the "go away to another school" thing and I don't really feel like becoming the guy who keeps hopping from school to school. And even though I'll be getting out of this town in another year, my dad is going to be in Lima for the rest of his life. He has a business here, and that means he depends on the good will of the community. Last year, he was getting abusive phone calls from anonymous filth just because I stopped hiding that I'm gay; I don't want to think about what might happen to him and his work if Lima tags Burt Hummel as the father of the kid who killed Prom. It's not that I don't want to push the issue and make a difference, but . . ."

"Kurt, we get it. You need to make the best decisions for everyone; of course you want to protect your dad," Rachel assured him.

Kurt looked his thanks, remembering the moment at the concession stand before the Sectionals competition when she told him not to feel guilty about transferring to Dalton since he wasn't safe at McKinley. "I can't say that the Board's policy comes as a total surprise, and I know I shouldn't let it bother me that much. After all, there _is_ a huge, fabulous life awaiting me after high school, and it's coming closer every day. It's like you wrote in your Regionals song—and have I thanked you for deliberately including me in the performance that way?—one day, the cretins who would go ballistic merely because I attended Prom with my boyfriend will be working for me and washing my car. Or cars—I expect to have quite a few to match my various moods and outfits."

Laughing, Mercedes noted, "That was Puck. He remembered how you always told him, in the middle of being thrown in the dumpster, that you'd be his boss in the future. He said that if we used the line, it would be like having a part of you up there on stage singing with us." She went on. "It's the kids who think high school is the end-all and be-all of life—the best days they'll ever know—who'd have the hardest time losing Prom. The ones who resent that some of us know high school is just a step on the way to something more, not _it_. And we _know_ how they—and how people in general—would react if Prom were to be cancelled. And hell, can you just imagine how_ Quinn_ would react if Prom were taken away?"

Her words hung in the air as the atmosphere of the room became laden with a new tension. With guilty eyes, Mercedes looked at Kurt, meeting his admonitory gaze and almost imperceptible head shake. They had made a private pact to keep from mentioning the "Q" word around Rachel, feeling that the best way they could help their fellow diva was to spare her the necessity of commenting on or thinking about the school's new power couple.

The fresh silence was broken by Rachel, who, after steeling her face and slightly throwing back her shoulders, stated, "You're totally right, Mercedes. The Junior Prom is a major event for many people, including many of our fellow glee clubbers. In addition to all the flack Kurt would face from the school and the town of Lima, we could overset things in glee at the precise moment when we need to stay absolutely focused on preparing for Nationals. It's hard enough mediating the politics between Qu-Quinn and Finn, Lauren and Puck, and Santana as they all run for royalty; all glee equilibrium would be destroyed if they learned their campaign efforts had been for nothing. For Quinn and Fi . . .—for some of them, this is just as important, or more so, as winning a singing competition is for any one of us. I hate backing down from a fight on this, but since you, Kurt, don't want to take it on, concerns about the stability of New Directions also seem to point to not taking action that could make McKinley preemptively cancel Prom. "

"Not to mention the abuse that would be piled on the entire glee club, because you can be sure the school would find a way to hold all of New Directions accountable for cancelling Prom," Mercedes added with relief, glad to see Rachel rallying so well. "Coach Sylvester would say it was all Mr. Schue's fault and use it to . . ." and all of the friends joined together in exaggeratedly growling "_DESTROY THE GLEE CLUB!_"

They burst into laughter, and when it subsided, Mercedes spoke again. "So, we've decided we _aren't _going to do something that might lead the Board to cancel Prom, and Kurt doesn't want himself and Blaine to be the escorts of the two _finest_ divas who'll be attending the ball. Where does that leave us?"

Suddenly, Rachel sprang up from the foot of the bed, leaping to the floor to stand in front of her two friends. In her eyes was a gleam—her maniacal gleam, Kurt thought to himself—that was all too familiar to both him and Mercedes. It was the patented Rachel Berry "I know how to save the day" look—a look that had just as often led the glee club into disaster as it had actually saved them.

Rachel launched into talking, full speed ahead. "Kurt wants to go to the Prom with Blaine as his date. The school won't allow Kurt to bring Blaine as his date. Kurt doesn't want to cause the school board to do something that will incite the town of Lima to storm his house—or his dad's tire shop—with pitchforks and torches in the dead of night. All true, right?"

"_Yes_, Rachel, _that's_ right," Kurt responded, sarcastically adding, "it's _only_ what we've been saying for the past several hours; good to know you're following. Although the part about pitchforks and torches in the dead of night is all you. No doubt," he muttered under his breath "born of a subconscious desire for someone to hold the Frankenteen residing in my home to account for his behavior . . . ."

"What's that, Kurt?" Rachel asked.

"Nothing. Unless the citizens of Lima have reverted to total medieval behavior, we'd probably get off with harassing phone calls and a boycott of Hummel's Tire Shop. Which I don't want to have happen," Kurt responded.

"Then let's follow the fine example of the townspeople of Mississippi!"

"Huh?" Mercedes and Kurt both looked at her, faces confused. "You think we should copy the jerks in that town?"

Rachel looked at them brightly, clearly proud of herself. "We should take preemptive action of our own. We can hold our _own_ Prom; a privately sponsored, non-school related event that anyone can attend."

As the faces of the other two in the room remained confused, Rachel tried to explain further. "An alternative Prom, held off of school property, open to all. I could talk to my dads about finding community sponsors to help cover the costs—maybe we could make it a free dance, or just accept whatever donations people can afford to give at the door. That might help some of the students whose parents are struggling to make ends meet in this economy and make it possible for some who otherwise couldn't afford Prom to come."

Seeing that Mercedes and Kurt still weren't convinced, Rachel's voice faltered slightly. "Look, I know it's not ideal, but it would be _something_ we could do—a way to show that if the school won't take action to be fair, students can organize on their own to do the right thing. And you could come with Blaine, Kurt—you'd get to attend _your_ Prom with the date of_ your_ own choosing on your arm. And, if we can pull it off, we can use it as solid evidence that an open event _can_ work out, and next year we can try to convince the Board to change its policy before our _Senior_ Prom."

In the face of their continued silence and stares, Rachel pulled out her final argument. "Just think, guys, what kind of event we can have if the three of _us_ have total artistic control. None of us are on the Prom committee at school—it's made up of only one group of kids, those who always run things—and it is just going to be the same generic, bland, cookie-cutter rebooted school dance with some sort of enchanted princess-y theme and all generic pop-type music. But with us doing the planning, decorating, and song selections, we could create something that will stand out, something people would remember forever!"

Mercedes looked at Kurt. Kurt looked at Mercedes. After a few moments of staring at each other, they nodded and Kurt turned to Rachel. "OK, here are the ground rules. You can help with the music, entertainment, sponsorship, and promotion. Mercedes and I have absolute decision-making discretion over decorations. And I am supervising your wardrobe, period, because, if we're going to be seen as co-hosts of a function, I need to control your look. You wear what I tell you to wear. Agreed?"

"No cat suits or clown hookers?" Rachel inquired with a grin.

"Total class, all the way; I promise on my vintage vinyl copy of Madonna's _Material Girl_."

"Then you've got a deal, Hummel." Rachel's smile beamed as she held out her hand to seal the bargain.

"Wait a minute, wait up now," Mercedes interjected. "Three things. First of all, there are only three weeks until Prom; how are we going to find the time to pull together an event like this _while_ we're getting ready for Nationals _and_ dealing with end of the school-year class work? And second, do you think people will _really_ attend a dance put on by the three of us? That people will want to go to a glee sponsored event instead of to the biggest social event of the school year? We may as well just hang out at one of our homes with Blaine and watch classic prom movies, because the four of us are likely to be the only ones there. We can dress up to hang out, I suppose, but . . ."

"Mercedes, _please_, do you know nothing about me?" Kurt indignantly asked his friend. "Who pulled together the wedding of the season on a few weeks' notice? I said back then what I'll say now—I've planned out enough parties in my lifetime to make Blair Waldorf look like a total slacker. All I've been waiting for is the opportunity to stage them."

"And you may be right about a low attendance," Rachel chimed in, "but I spent some time before school ended gathering statistics on past years' Junior Prom attendance rates compared to the population of the Junior class as a whole. There are always a significant number of students who don't go to Prom. If we present this the right way, maybe they'll feel like it's something being done for them. It won't be a glee sponsored event, because glee is an official school organization and this has to be independent from the school; I mean, they'll probably associate it with glee, but technically it will be just a private party. And hey—how about inviting the Warblers to perform, Kurt? Having a bunch of super-cute guys who sing so well ought to draw some students at least."

Nodding, Kurt said he'd contact the Warbler High Council and broach the idea. After he had convinced them to get out of the gilded cage of the Academy walls and perform in public a few times, his former teammates had become increasingly excited about extending their audience base.

"OK. It sounds like a plan, and I'm mostly on board. But just one more thing," Mercedes said. "You said that we can't disturb the dynamic in glee. How do you think _some people_ will react to the idea of a dance we put on competing with the school Prom? Don't you think this might blow up in our faces right before Nationals?"

Rachel looked squarely at Mercedes and responded to what her friend was really saying. "Honestly? I don't think it will even appear on Quinn's radar screen. If Prom was cancelled—well, I can't even imagine what she'd do. But something like this, as you said yourself, won't be big enough to detract from the school dance; that's what she's focused on—being elected queen of the official McKinley High Junior Prom. As long as it doesn't pull votes from her, I doubt she'll care, and since ballots can be cast during the school week before Prom as well as at the dance that night, anyone attending our dance could still vote for her. I know I'm planning to; it means _so_ much to her, and if she comes away from Prom happy it will only enhance her participation at Nationals, making us that much more competitive."

Looking right back at Rachel, Mercedes pushed her. "And what about Finn? How's he going to feel about having to choose between the two dances?"

Rachel quickly replied, "There's no choosing involved. He's with Quinn; he's running for Prom King; of course he's going to the school dance. They'll be so busy with last minute campaigning I doubt they'll even notice we aren't there."

Right on top of Rachel, Kurt added, "He probably won't even realize there _is_ another dance; he only knows what's going on with the regular Prom because Quinn sends him a constant stream of text messages telling him what he needs to do next and where he needs to be at every moment of the day. She's keeping him so busy that he hasn't had time to explode a single zombie for two weeks; the frustration of video game withdrawal is probably what's causing him to periodically kick and punch his wall and any furniture that inconsiderately strays in his way at home."

Noting Rachel's downcast eyes and silence—a stark contrast to how she would have, just short time ago, taken his words as an invitation to try to find out more about what was bothering Finn and to say how she could make it better if they were together—Kurt kept talking.

"Actually, I think it would be best if we did what we could to keep this from coming to Finn's attention. And I'll be constructing a cone of silence regarding Prom around my dad and Carole, too; I'll let them all just think I'm going to the school event, and they'll never know the difference."

"What? Kurt, your dad's going to want to know what's going on," Rachel insisted, closely followed by Mercedes: "Yeah, Kurt, I can't imagine your dad being OK with not knowing about this; he doesn't like it when anyone tries to hold you down."

"That's just it. He's super-protective of me, and I know he'd march right to Principal Figgins' office, first, and then to the next school board meeting. I don't want him getting involved; he _would_ threaten to do something, and now that he knows your dads, Rachel, he'd probably be on the phone to them to get all the information about filing a legal challenge that we just learned. But he wouldn't hold back from suing, or threatening to sue, and then all the stuff we're trying to prevent would happen. It would be bad for him and for New Directions." The two girls were slowly nodding their heads as Kurt went on. "Even if I could talk him out of doing all that, I wouldn't want him to know that Finn was going to the school Prom when I'm not. He'd blame Finn for not taking my side, and things would be awkward and uncomfortable at home. I don't want the house to feel like it's full of landmines with my dad ready to explode all over Finn at any moment."

Mercedes tried one last time. "And you guys don't think that Finn might choose the alternative Prom? After everything he said at the wedding reception?"

Kurt shook his head, while Rachel remained still. "I don't see how. This-Prom Queen and King-means everything to Quinn; Finn doesn't really have a choice to make. What's he going to do—abandon Quinn and turn away from the status he's worked so hard to get and hold on to this year, throwing away his already-in-the-bag crown? You guys _sang _about being losers and made it seem like a badge of honor, but does anyone really _want_ to embrace the title when it isn't forced on them? Not likely, and I don't feel like pushing it just for the sake of seeing what would happen. Let's leave Finn out of it."

Rachel, without commenting on the Finn/Burt dynamic, merely said, "Like you said, Kurt, he probably won't realize it is happening. Since it's not an official school event, we can't put up posters in school or use any of the school's information systems to advertise. We'll have to spread things by word of mouth and social media—maybe Facebook and Tumblr pages, and a Twitter hash tag. Finn doesn't go looking for information on those, and he rarely checks his own Facebook page. To be safe, we can block his name and Quinn's from seeing the sites, and as long as we keep our mouths shut, they probably won't hear about the dance. It's not like either one of them spends a lot of time these days outside of glee talking to our target attendee audience of 'losers.'" She knew her final words came out with a slighlyt bitter twist, and was gratefull to Mercedes for not commenting and just moving on.

"OK; sounds like we have a party to plan. Although I still think a night of watching classic prom movies would be perfectly fine." Mercedes was about to ask Rachel what they should tackle first when she saw that the tiny girl had another one of _those looks_ on her face.

"Mercedes, you're a genius!" Rachel whispered.

"Not arguing, but what particular aspect of my brilliance finally convinced you?"

"A night of classic prom movies—that's our theme. We'll project classic movies featuring high school proms and dances on a wall—and maybe set some up for viewing, too, in a separate room for people who want to rest or don't want to dance. Everything from _Carrie_ to _Pretty in Pink _to _She's All That_. We can decorate—Kurt, move your hand and let me talk!" she insisted as Kurt lunged to cover her mouth, hissing "total control over the decorations; you promised!" at her. "We can pull on themes from the films to decorate, and throughout the night we can project dance scenes from the movies and teach everyone the dances in them. That'll get some of the kids who don't feel comfortable dancing on their own out on the floor in a big group. The Warblers can add some of those songs to their repertoire, and for others we'll just have somebody DJ."

"That _is_ genius; glad I thought of it!" Mercedes chortled.

"It'll make the event distinct, unique, special, and will be a hook for spreading the word. And Kurt—we _can_ embrace the losers theme. The best of all of those movies—the ones people watch over and over—are about kids who feel like they're losers, even if they hide it really well. Everyone can relate to that; it's why the same theme keeps being used. We can call it the Losers' Ball and encourage people to come and be themselves, whoever that might be."

"Rachel Berry," said Kurt, "I do believe you've got it! But I _still_ get final say on the decorations and total control over your wardrobe."

"YES!" Rachel shouted, punching her fist in the air. "Hand me a notebook and one of my pens. We've got to get to work. Who wants to ask Lauren and Artie about getting help from the AV club . . . ."

G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E

_AN again: Ryan Murphy has said in interviews that he wants to address the issue of Kurt going to the prom with a story 'ripped right from the headlines.' The real life story of Constance occurred in 2010, and it may well be the story to which Murphy is referring; that was the inspiration for me to start wondering how this might play out on _Glee.

_For those wanting to learn more about the actual case in Mississippi that the Berry dads talk about, following are some links to news and opinion stories. The young woman's name is Constance McMillen, and she was attending school in Itawamba County, MS at Itawamba Agricultural High School when this occurred. The ACLU did aid Constance in her case, as they have done with similar challenges around the country. Once the news about the decoy prom and the secret dance emerged, the ACLU pressed forward on these issues and Constance was eventually offered a settlement by the school district, where she was awarded $35,000 and where the school district had to agree to "adopt a comprehensive nondiscrimination and nonharassment policy that covers sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, which is the first such policy in any public school in Mississippi ." Constance used the money toward her college expenses after graduating from another high school. She also did advocacy on non-discrimination issues nation wide, including meeting with President Obama at the White House to talk about bullying and student safety issues and lobbying members of Congress to support the Student Non-Discrimination Act. She spoke briefly at the April 17, 2010 GLAAD awards, the same event where _Glee_ was given an award for "Outstanding Comedy" and Ryan Murphy, in his acceptance speech, said Kurt would attend prom and he and his date would be elected Prom King & King. Constance was invited to and served as the Grand Marshal of New York City's 2010 Gay Pride Parade and this past year was named one of _Glamour_ magazine's 2010 Women of the Year._

_Constance on the _Ellen_ show while the case was going on, but before it was decided and the "decoy prom" and the secret prom had occurred: at the world wide website youtube, add the following extension: .com/watch?v=uYrO99QgEDo _

_ABC news story early in the case: _at the world wide website_ abcnews , add the following extension: /Health/TheLaw/aclu-files-lawsuit-school-cancels-prom-lesbians-request/story?id=10076018&page=1 _

_CBS news story after the information about the "fake prom" and "secret prom" was made public: _at the world wide website_ cbsnews , add the following extension: .com/8301-504083_ _

__Great op-ed piece discussing discrimination and bullying in this and other cases: _at the world wide website_ huffingtonpost, add the following extention: .com/candace-gingrich/prom-shocker-constance-mc_b_ __

_One of several ACLU articles talking about the case, _Constance McMillen v. Itawamba County School District , et al., _and discussing the additional charges brought after the "decoy" and "secret" proms where held. ___At the world wide website aclu, add_ the following extention: .org/lgbt-rights/aclu-complaint-takes-decoy-prom-mississippi-lesbian-student . _

_This next link discusses the outcome of the case, where the school board settled by giving Constance monetary damages and, most importantly to Constance, agreed to adopt a non-discriminatory school policy. _at the world wide website_ aclu, add the following extension: .org/blog/lgbt-rights/victory-constance-mcmillen  
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	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Thank you so much for the lovely, thoughtful, and encouraging reviews! For anyone who may have been wondering, the description of the Mississippi prom case in the first chapter did happen in real life—just last year (2010) in fact. I added an author's note to the end of that chapter describing the case in a bit more detail and providing information for online links that tell more of Constance's story. Since the fanfiction website doesn't allow me to insert actual internet links, I have put the name of the main website in text and then included the end extension that can go after entering the www dot name of website into a browser. _

_This chapter lets us see into Finn's thoughts and get a sense of how he feels about things as the time of Prom approaches. _

_Disclaimer: I own nothing and am in no way connected to or affiliated with Glee or anything to do with the show; just an avid fan who likes to imagine what might happen if . . ._

G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E G L E E

The next week, Mr. Schuester started rehearsal by going over their practice schedule for the week and then said he had an announcement to make about something Principal Figgins had asked them to do. Amid the groans from his fellow teammates, who all remembered Figgins' last request for the glee club to do something (_when would the man ever learn than glee club + McKinley audiences = disaster on a massive scale_), Finn noticed that Mr. Schue seemed kind of nervous, and kept darting glances at Rachel, Mercedes, and Kurt. Finn wondered if the request required a soloist and if Mr. Schue was bracing himself to tell them either than one of the three divas got the solo while the other two did not—something sure to bring on cries of outrage and valuable rehearsal time lost to yet another diva-off—or, what would be even worse, that the solo was going to someone else, in which case they might see a triple-storm-off and the end of getting any glee stuff done that day.

"Guys, guys, settle down and let me tell you about it, OK?" Mr. Schuester waited for the room to grow quiet—or at least to settle down to sullen murmurs—before giving them the news. Figgins thought it would be nice, as a way to spotlight the glee club and help send them on their way to Nationals, if the New Directions performed a set at Prom. Into a sudden, dead silence, and with yet another nervous glance toward Finn's brother and Kurt's two best friends, Mr. Schue asked, "So, what do you think? Performing anywhere helps to make us that much more prepared for Nationals, right?"

Out of the corners of his eyes, Finn seemed to see all the people around him turning their heads to look at each other and then—and this was starting to creep Finn out, a little—to look nervously at the 3Ds, as everyone called them now. It still seemed a little weird to Finn that he never sat near Rachel in glee any more; even when they weren't together, they often used to sit near each other so that they could listen to how their voices would blend in numbers. Once Regionals was over that had all changed. Finn understood why. And yeah, he was glad that Rachel had finally developed such great friends and all, really. (_Although, to be honest? He kind of thought he understood now what she was saying last September when she told him that she wanted to be the only thing that made him happy. He used to be that for her, and it kind of sucked to have lost that_). It was just weird to see her enter the choir room and look around not for him, but for Mercedes and Kurt; weird to see her choosing her seat not in relation to where he was sitting, but going over to be with them until and unless Mr. Schue arranged them differently for vocal effect. Finn knew things were different now, but sometimes he missed the way they used to be.

The silence kept going on; it seemed like everyone was waiting for somebody else to say something. A hand clutching his arm pulled Finn's attention away from the room and to his girlfriend. He took in the frozen frown on her face; clearly, Quinn didn't want the glee club to be performing at the Prom. While a lot of Quinn's attitudes about Prom—what it should be like and why it mattered—were a mystery to him, a reluctance to have New Directions sing there actually made sense for once. Prom was supposed to be a formal, dressed up event; a special occasion; memorable, yes, but not memorable because of a glee-induced riot breaking out, or gleaming gray vomit spewing across the room.

As Quinn hissed at him, "Do something!" Finn felt, for a moment, like he was experiencing—what was the name Rachel had told him about for that feeling that you've lived something before? Doggie View? _And what did dogs have to do with it? Could they time travel? Because a time-travelling dog would be really cool; he could use it to take a test and then go back before the test and know what to study and come back to the test prepared to ace it. What a way to bring up his grade point average!_ Well, whatever it was called, Finn felt like he'd lived through this before as he remembered Mr. Schue announcing the plan for Sectionals and Rachel, after trying on her own to change the teacher's mind, bumping him in the shoulder as _she_ whispered "Do something!" _And yeah, that had pretty much been a disaster all the way around; maybe the time-travelling dog thing was best left alone. Unless it could take him back in time to before he didn't tell Rachel about him and Santana, or before he slept with Santana, or before he broke up with Rachel because he wanted to find his inner rock-star . . . ._

Before he could pull himself out of those rancid memories to obey the insistence of Quinn's hand still pulling on his arm, he heard Rachel speaking up.

"Mr. Schue, while we appreciate the confidence Principal Figgins has in us, and while it is touching that he'd like to give us the opportunity to have the school show us their support . . ."

"Like that would happen," Santana's voice uttered. "More like setting us up for public humiliation. It's bad enough on normal days, but we really don't need it at Prom."

Sending a glare her way that said, as clearly as anything, "Shut up!" Rachel continued. "_As_ I was saying, while we appreciate the gesture, I really do not think that would be a good idea. We need to be putting _all_ of our energies into preparation for Nationals. Taking time to come up with, learn, and rehearse selections appropriate for performing at the Prom could only distract us from the focus Nationals demands from us."

Immediately on the heel of Rachel's statement, as if they had planned it together and were in perfect harmony with all of each others' thoughts (which Finn knew to be _far_ from the truth; they were much more like dissing . . . distant . . . distanent (_what was the word?_) . . .well, much more like clashing notes than music in harmony), Quinn chimed in, saying that she agreed perfectly with Rachel, as she was sure they all did; that not one of them would want to do anything to endanger their preparation for Nationals; and that it might actually do them good, after devoting their full attention to the upcoming competition, to have a single night off from glee—a night when they could relax and refresh themselves and just be regular students enjoying a party and not worrying about being on stage.

Finn thought she was laying it on a bit too thick with that last part. He knew full well that being on stage at Prom figured _hugely_ into Quinn's plans for the night; it was just that she did not intend to be up there as a part of glee. She intended to be up there on her own, the sole occupant when Prom Queen and King were announced. Well, not as the sole occupant-she intended for them both to be up there, but Finn increasingly felt like he was more of a well-thought-out and matched accessory, not a co-equal winner. Quinn was already pissed that two of the other glee members were running against her for Prom Queen, and that two of her former boyfriends were also running for King—Puck because he was running with Lauren and Sam because he'd been nominated by a huge gaggle of freshmen girls who followed him around all the time asking if they could play with his Biebalicious hair. _Finn wondered if Sam ever got tired of shaking the hair out of his eyes; that one time he'd tried to rock the Bieber look his neck had been sore for a week as a result of all the awkward head-tossing. _

Having the other guys running for Prom King was fine by him; Finn didn't really mind. He felt like he was a pretty safe bet for King, and while it would be cool to, essentially, be voted the most popular guy in the school, he already pretty much _had_ that after the championship game; he'd be riding that victory until football began again in September. But Quinn _did_ mind, and she certainly would not want them to do anything that might showcase or put any of her—she'd say _their_—rivals in the spotlight. And Finn had a feeling that she _really_ didn't want Rachel to be in the spotlight on that night either-that for Quinn, a night off from glee was kind of like saying a night off from Rachel. But if New Directions was singing—well, everyone knew who would end up being seen as the star. Rachel would be the one shining on that stage, just like she did everywhere else . . . .

With an actual effort, Finn forced himself to stop thinking about Rachel, and to pull his eyes away from where they'd strayed to rest on her. Quinn had told him, over and over, that he did that constantly, and each time it seemed to make her a little bit angrier. When it happened at times when Prom was the subject, Quinn's reaction was even worse. So he tried to make himself stop, turning his head back toward the front to see Mr. Schue nod as he clapped his hands together once and said, "OK, that settles it; no singing at Prom. I'll tell Principal Figgins. Now, let's get to rehearsing." Finn thought he must have been right about Mr. Schue seeming nervous; probably, Finn decided, he didn't really want them to sing at the dance but just didn't know how to deprive Rach—deprive the divas in the group of a chance to perform. Finn knew his choir director well enough by now to know that if he'd really wanted them to sing, he'd have kept pressing them; and if he hadn't already agreed with what Rachel said, he'd have had the glee club put it to a vote on the assumption that the majority would vote Rachel down.

Quinn's hold on Finn's arm was now caressing rather than clutching; she looked pleased as she smiled to herself and hummed a bit. He supposed he was happy that she was happy about her Prom expectations continuing smoothly with glee interruptions or interference. For himself, he was just glad that they could really concentrate on getting the group ready for Nationals. Prom was just another night for him, really, although he was trying to make himself care about it because it mattered so much to Quinn and she was his girlfriend and everything. But all he really wanted to focus on at this point was the coming show choir competition; he was one of the team leaders, and he wanted them to have a real fighting chance to bring home a trophy or to win it all outright. He'd actually considered taking the season off from the school's baseball team this spring so that he could spend extra time trying to perfect his dance moves. After all, he played baseball because it was the top spring sport, but it was a distant third, in his book, to football and basketball. Finn played it because he was a jock, and jocks played sports year round, and baseball was fun and all that, but winning at it didn't capture his heart and soul like winning football did. Finn had even gone so far as to look up some casual city league that he could join once they were back from New York and summer began, a league he could take part in just for the fun of playing a game until football practice began in August.

When he mentioned his plan to Quinn, though, she'd put a stop to it, insisting that he needed to keep up his school athletic involvements and leadership because it was a part of their campaign. "People expect to see you playing sports, Finn," she'd said. "They expect to see you helping to lead the team to a win. Now isn't a good time to do something that might go against their expectations and make them wonder if Finn Hudson really is the cool sports superstar they know and count on-and whom _I_ know and count on, too," she finished, a sweet smile on her face. So, as he'd done since he was a freshman, Finn played baseball for McKinley and took the position of captain. He wasn't enjoying it all that much; it was kind of lonely, because Puck and Mike both _had_ dropped baseball this year to focus on Nationals. Their girlfriends had agreed that was a better way of spending time (and of spending more time _with_ them) with all of the work they had to do to get ready. Once or twice, Finn wondered if part of Quinn's encouraging him to do something other than just focus on glee was a way of putting some distance between him and the other glee kids (between him and Rachel, especially, he couldn't help thinking) in the mind of the school.

In fact, it sort of felt like he and Quinn were kind of splintering off from glee a little bit. They were always at the rehearsals and took part in any official event to get the team ready or to help raise funds for their travel expenses; it wasn't like they were doing any less than was expected of them. But every instant of free time outside of official glee stuff or class or sports had been scheduled by Quinn for Prom-campaigning—they were promoting themselves as Prom Royalty 24/7. Finn thought that Quinn might be preparing herself for working one day to be a campaign manager for politicians; he was pretty sure that she'd rock at it, if the amount of planning and energy she put into something like Prom elections was any indication.

They were always together, which was kind of cool and he guessed that was kind of expected when you were dating and serious and everything, but sometimes it seemed like a little too much. He and Rachel had spent tons of time together, but while he was dating her he'd still had free time to hang out with Puck and shoot baskets in the park, or to go over to Artie's for marathon Halo tournaments. But Rachel, of course, had had her singing and dance and piano and acting and other lessons to keep up with, and that had left him with some hours to himself almost every day. In fact, it had often seemed like there wasn't _enough_ time for him to spend with Rachel; on the rare occasions when they'd have an unscheduled day and would hang out from morning to night, he'd always found himself at the end of their time together wishing there were a few more hours before they had to part. Quinn, it seemed, had nothing to do but school, glee, and campaign for Prom; all the energy and focus that used to go into being the head cheerleader on a nationally ranked team was now directed toward a single goal: winning a crown . So campaign for Prom they did, morning, noon, and night.

Any school event where "votes might be found" found them there, seeking votes. Finn didn't think he'd been to as many parties thrown by McKinley students in all of his three years at the school as he had attended in the past two months, and he'd never realized just how many teams and clubs and organizations the school had, with each and every one of them putting on some sort of performance or activity or something almost every day. The delightful afternoons they'd spent shut up in Quinn's bedroom before her mom came home from work were largely a thing of the past; while they still had time to make out, it was mostly squeezed into hurried moments in the car or an empty school hallway as they went from place to place on the campaign trail. There were a lot more public displays of affection, though; Quinn had developed a way of always reaching out to hold onto Finn's hand, to wrap her arm around his, to lean against his shoulder, to pull herself into his side, to reach up to caress or kiss his cheek. It was like she wanted everyone to see (or maybe one person in particular?) that they belonged to each other now.

Mr. Schue was now going over a panel by panel chart of the dance routines for one of their Nationals numbers. Finn knew he should be paying attention—dancing was by far the hardest part of glee for him, no matter how much extra coaching Mike squeezed in when he could—but he couldn't seem to keep his mind from wandering.

"It'll be the best of the best at Nationals, guys, and you've _proven_ that you are a part of that best." Mr Schue was in the middle of his 'encourage them to greatness' pep talk. "Now we've got to give it our all to outshine the competition and blow them away. Each step, each gesture, each expression on your face will be a part of what is judged, just like your singing, and it deserves your best efforts. This is the big time, guys; the big leagues. This is _New York_, where dreams are made and all the world is watching!"

Finn still couldn't quite believe that they were actually going to New York. He remembered saying a long time ago that most of the kids at McKinley might never leave the state of Ohio; remembered telling Sam how most of the kids in the school had never seen the ocean. Hell, he was one of them; or he had been. But now he was going—they _all_ were going—and they'd all be seeing what Rachel talked about all the time. She had been before, of course; many times, in fact. Her dads took her at least once a year, and he knew that there were certain blocks of Broadway that she could walk blindfolded (not that she'd ever dream of shutting her eyes when there was so much to see there, she'd told him; it was just the opposite—she'd try to make herself go for as long as she could without blinking so she didn't miss the tiniest part of a second of looking around and taking it all in). And now, mostly because of _her_—her leadership in glee, her unrelenting pushing of them to excel, and her own outstanding performing— they were _all_ going there.

Finn knew, and he knew that everyone in the glee club knew, that they had already won Regionals by the time Rachel hit the bridge of her ballad. Singing "Loser Like Me" afterwards had almost been an unnecessary encore. He'd _known_ that she could do it; that she could write a song that would win it all for them, and that the power of her words and voice and genuine emotion would pull the entire room up out of their seats and onto their feet in wild applause. He hadn't yet found the words to truly tell her just how amazing the song was; admitting to himself that he was being a coward about it, Finn hadn't even really tried to do so. Because every time he started to think about it—every time he put himself back in the wings of the stage, watching her sing, letting himself hear her, really _hear_ her for the first time in a long, long time sing a real song, and sing it to him (even though it was far from just being sung to him or being about him)—he started to feel like he was drowning and melting and exploding all at the same time. It was a dangerous, overwhelming feeling, and he didn't know how to handle it and the emotions it brought up, so he just tried to avoid it. On the bus ride home from Regionals, Finn had realized something: ever since Sectionals, he'd been refusing to really let himself_ listen_ to Rachel sing out of self-protection (the same reason he'd refused to let himself give her a real kiss at his stupid kissing booth), because he hadn't felt like he could afford to experience what it did to him inside—how it moved him inside—when he heard her sing.

They'd all been right about her song, and her singing; she'd sung them to victory, and now New York City was just a few weeks away. Rachel, being Rachel, had looked up the location of the competition early on in the summer. She had known, long before Mr. Schue announced it at the beginning of the year, that they would be competing in "their" future city—his city and hers, she'd said, in the future she was so sure of, when she was a star on Broadway receiving those first Tony awards at a ceremony with him by her side. "We'll make it there, Finn! We _will_; I just _know_ it-this is our year!" she'd triumphantly insisted, already envisioning them on the Nationals stage a year into the future. Finn thought of the plans she'd made to show him around New York, to "show him our home, Finn, the city we'll have at our feet!" and recalled the hours she had spent through long summer days and nights picking out numerous possible songs-solos and duets and group numbers-for them all to perform at each step of the competitive season. Well, not all of those visions were coming true; it wasn't going to be _their_ city any more, and the music she had planned for them was not what they were rehearsing today. But they _were _going to be there, as she'd predicted, and Finn was absolutely certain that another part of Rachel's vision would come true, too—one day, it _would_ be _her_ city: she would be there and would get those Tonys and would shine brighter than any star on Broadway, or in the Milky Way for that matter.

But as far as Nationals was concerned, nothing other than making it to the competition there in New York was turning out like Finn had thought and like Rachel had planned. He was the first to admit that their competition strategy was brilliant (Rachel's idea, again, so he wasn't surprised), and he was totally on board with it as a way to win, but it was absolutely the opposite of what they had imagined. Finn was singing a minor lead part on one group number–one of several lead voices—and, for the rest, he'd be doing backup. It felt strange—not because he felt he should always have a solo, or competed for them or anything, but because they were going with a whole different pattern of singers and a new way of delivering a song. And this wasn't because Mr. Schue had decided the biggest competition of their lives would be the perfect moment for delivering a meaningful life lesson, either. It was all Rachel's idea.

When Mr. Schue first announced his plan for Nationals, Rachel put her hand up and began to say she thought they should do it differently. And everyone almost died of shock. Because they always thought that she used these moments of criticism to push for a bigger part for herself (with good reason, because she had certainly done that enough in the past), to make sure _she_ had the solo and was the star. And this time, in the wake of her performance at Regionals, without her having to fight for it Mr. Schue had planned a program that featured her heavily in every song. He'd gone back to their first Sectionals and Regionals competitions, with Rachel doing a solo ballad, Finn and Rachel singing a duet, and then the two of them and Artie leading the group number with Mercedes wailing out the end.

Rachel had insisted that wouldn't work. Speaking at her rapid-fire pace as all of them were busy trying to haul their jaws off of the floor, she told them that Vocal Adrenaline—_the_ team to beat as Nationals winners for the previous four years in a row—would be totally expecting them to do this. They would be planning their strategy with the expectation that New Directions would feature her, and so they would tailor their performances with the specific intent of having their strong soloist, Sunshine, out-sing Rachel in every number. She told them (because none of them had been there to see Vocal Adrenaline last year; everyone but Rachel had been at the hospital with Quinn and Puck) that Vocal Adrenaline worked by focusing on a super strong voice and using everyone else to be a theatrical support for that voice in a hugely staged number. She was certain that their performance would be a knock-down solo with a whole lot of back-up singing and mind-blowing dancing.

"If we try to go up against that _with_ that," Rachel had said, "we'll lose. That's their game, and we can't beat them at it. We'll win by being different." Finn had noticed eight pairs of eyes, belonging to him, Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Artie, Quinn, Santana, and Brittany, swiveling to her with flashes of recognition and remembrance as they were transported back in time. Back to the moment when she stood down that evil dwarf Dakota Stanley and said that they'd win _because_ they were different. Finn had never forgotten Rachel saying that. While he'd been kind of excited by her when she made her speech in the celibacy club about girls wanting sex and all, and had been attracted to her from the time of their abruptly ended picnic in the auditorium, it had been in that moment, when she said their individuality was their greatest strength, that he, Finn Hudson, felt like he was really _seeing _Rachel Berry for the first time. Seeing right inside of her, and really, really liking what he saw. Finding himself wanting to spend more time with her, so that he could learn from her how to really believe that the things that made him different were the best things about him. Wanting to discover from her how to have the courage to let his differences show without being afraid of what others might say about him.

"What do you think we should do then, Rachel?" Finn had been surprised that it was Santana who asked, before anybody else, and actually asked like she wanted to hear the answer. That was something new, and it showed just how much things had changed between Rachel and others in the group. Rachel had convinced them that they needed to do the opposite of Vocal Adrenaline; they needed to draw on as many of their individual voices as was possible—to draw on their different and unique sounds and styles, featuring the many contrasting voices that made up their group. Forget trying to just blend our voices behind one lead, she had said—the more we can show our contrasts and ultimately bring them together, the better. We'll stand out in the judges' minds by doing something different and surprising them, and it will reflect what we do best and what we're all about.

It hadn't taken much convincing after that, and Rachel barreled right on with song ideas and recommendations. They were going to start off with a lead number featuring Mercedes and Kurt, with Mercedes singing melody and Kurt providing what Rachel called "transcendent counterpoint"—he could remember those words because Rachel repeated them every single time her two fellow Ds rehearsed-something she doubted any other group would be able to pull off, because none of the other teams there would have Kurt. She beamed at Finn's stepbrother as she said this, being met by an answering beam and a mouthed "love you!" as she added, "We'll win Nationals because we have Kurt. And Mercedes," she hastily added, reaching out a hand to her other friend. "Kurt and Mercedes will deliver something that will sound like nothing else any other team can bring."

Their next number would feature five voices that all had very different tones and qualities—Kurt, Tina, Artie, Santana, and Rachel. Rachel had originally proposed four voices, leaving herself out, but she had been overridden when the entire group insisted that she be a lead part, too. And their finale would be styled as one of their boys v. girls mash-ups, following Mr. Schue's lesson earlier in the year with the guys leading off on songs traditionally sung by women and the girls leading on songs usually done by men. That was the number where Finn was one of several leads, along with Puck, Sam, and Artie for the guys with Santana, Tina, and Rachel for the girls, with Mercedes and Kurt bringing it all home at the end (because, Rachel explained, it will remind the judges of how we started off, and we all know that Mercedes _always_ brings it home for us).

Finn had worried that Quinn would be upset at not having any major part, but she had actually turned down a suggestion that she be one of the vocal leads in the final number. She said that she was too absorbed with other things and didn't want to take on the responsibility if she didn't feel she could give it her all. It almost seemed like Quinn was saying, somehow, "Rachel gets glee; that's fine. I've got other things." Lauren, who, it turned out, had an amazing eye for visual effects—that probably explained, Finn thought, why she was the president of the AV club—was working with Mike and Brittany to plan out the best staging for the entire group as they sang—staging that would both feature lead voices and provide spotlight moments for their two star dancers to dazzle the crowd.

It was all really different, but Finn thought it had a great shot of working. And he thought it was amazing and really cool to see Rachel taking charge by taking herself out of the center of attention, and even cooler to see how the members of the club insisted that she take her fair turn in the spotlight. Finn wondered if she was trying to work so hard, and was so willing to put herself on the side, in part because she was still beating herself up about weakening the team when she drove Sunshine away last September. He'd seen her face at the benefit concert when Sunshine sang, and he knew that the emotion on it was neither admiration nor jealousy—it was fear. Abject fear, not that someone might be better than her, but fear of rejection. Fear that the group would go back to feeling she had destroyed their chances by sending Sunshine straight into the arms of their biggest rival, and that the relationships she'd been building up with the glee kids would turn sour as they remembered what she had done. There certainly had been some sour looks turned her way that night at the concert, but they didn't last, and Rachel came in to rehearsal the next Monday with her plan all worked out. She talked and argued and explained, not giving up until shebrought everyone on board.

And it was awesome to have Kurt back. He was, well, stunning in his parts, and all of their vocal arrangements were put together to show off the full extent of his incredible vocal range. Rachel was right: if they won this year, it probably would be because of Kurt as much as anything. But Finn still kind of felt like they were taking a risk by not having Rachel perform a solo, too. They did need to be different to win, but surely they could find a way to be different while still featuring the voice that literally pulled people out of their seats. Something just didn't seem—right, or fair, or smart, or something—in them not putting Rachel out front and center. And a part deeper down inside himself, a part that Finn was less likely to admit to even when it was just in his own mind, thought that they'd have first place in the bag if he and Rachel were singing a duet together, because then it wouldn't just be the words and sounds and contrasts and showmanship and differences that would be delivering for them, but the _feelings_ of the song capturing the audience and taking them away.

Finn had a sense of how those feelings might deliver a victory to them, because in addition to their competition numbers, they were also practicing "fake" numbers. Rachel and the five others who had, at one time or another, been Cheerios had all insisted that Coach Sylvester would absolutely be spying on them and leaking information to Vocal Adrenaline, if not to all of the other teams competing. Those six especially, either from being part of her "destroy the glee club" machinery in the past or from being played _by_ her, knew how Sue Sylvester worked. They knew that they had to take her into account or else all of their planning would be for nothing, and Mr. Schue absolutely agreed. So they were doing double practices, going ahead with the original plan Mr. Schue had come up with, being sure to practice those numbers frequently and when they knew others were around. And because the ex-Cheerios had told them about the cameras Sue had hidden everywhere, all of the glee club members were careful not to refer to their real plan anywhere on school grounds except in coded words. Sam had offered to teach them all na'vi so they could openly discuss their real plans, but Mr. Schue said they didn't have the time to learn a new language- especially when some of them still couldn't figure out how to complete a full sentence in Spanish. Finn was pretty sure he was one of the students Mr. Schue eyed as he said that last part.

This meant that Finn was doing a fair amount of "fake" singing with Rachel (a Journey number and others from the same time period; Mr. Schue had said Sue would absolutely believe those were their Nationals numbers because they were what he always had the glee club do) and fake practicing with Rachel. They made sure go through the duet several times with their "walk from the back doors of the auditorium" routine as further bait to convince the Cheerio coach. When Sam asked whether Coach Sylvester would start to suspect something when she heard them doing all the other numbers, they assured him it wouldn't be a problem; Kurt explained that Sue would believe the glee club was just doing its usual thing of wasting time singing songs about feelings and life lessons instead of buckling down to focus and practice for big competitions before the very last minute arrived.

Those fake songs, at least from Finn's perspective, were absolutely full of feelings. Maybe full of fake feelings—he knew they _should _be fake feelings, because he wasn't supposed to be having those feelings for Rachel anymore; he was supposed to have them for Quinn-but feelings nonetheless. And while it might not technically count as cheating to have those feelings for Rachel when we was with Quinn, it kind of felt like it, and Finn was willing to bet that Quinn would agree. And he didn't want to be that guy, but he kept finding himself thinking about Rachel with those feelings even after the music had come to an end and the rehearsal was over, and he didn't know how to stop. It kept him on edge a lot of the time, causing him to have a shorter temper than usual; trying to push the feelings down made it even harder for him to pay attention and focus when Quinn would tell him something about Prom.

It was impossible to push those feelings down when they were singing with each other, so he didn't even try after a while, justifying it to himself by saying they were trying to put on a convincing performance for Sue. Because when he let himself hear her sing, and when he sang with her, it was all feeling and emotion and soaring and voices interweaving and becoming one and _Rachel Rachel Rachel_ and he ended, every single damn time, feeling breathless and caught up in another world, staring into her eyes as he held her in his arms and slowly lifted up her hand. And then she would break away from him and turn to ask Mr. Schue how they'd done that time, and if their acting appeared convincing, and what they could do to make it better, and she'd go from looking totally into it to appearing totally not, like it was just an act, and he'd remember that it _was_ a performance and _was_ just for show, and when he'd finally look around he'd see Quinn's fixed gaze staring him down, and he'd remember once more that it was fake singing of fake songs in a fake performance. He still bet, though, that even fake feelings like those would more than convince an audience that everything was real and would give them the win.

Finn would stay awake long into the night, thinking it was stupid that he was unable to get over this, and telling himself it felt just like it had when they sang the Madonna mash-up together, because that had felt so real and left them breathless and panting and staring into each others' eyes. But after it was over, he reminded himself, she had turned away from him and had gone to Jesse, and he had turned away from her and gone to Santana, and everything was wrong. Except not everything, because she still hadn't gone through with sleeping with Jesse and she had said it was because of him. Or no, she had said she just told him she had slept with Jesse to make him, Finn, jealous, so he was there somewhere in the mix, at least. And even though he had gone through with sleeping with Santana, he had known that it didn't feel right because it wasn't with Rachel and he had decided not to tell her because, even though he'd done it to make her jealous, it turned out he didn't want to try to hurt her, so she was still there somewhere in the mix/ And, so, even when they were apart they were still together, and something, although he wasn't sure any more what and how much, of the feelings _were_ real.

Or they always _had_ been real. But now, for the first time he could remember, it felt like they weren't. Because Rachel really did seem to be moving on. Since Regionals, there had been no more apologies from her. No more coming up to ask him for advice on her songs. No more seeking him out with her gaze. No more moving on to another guy to try to make him jealous _and how messed up was it that he almost found himself wishing she was trying to make him jealous, because then it would mean she still felt enough for him to want to make him jealous_. She treated him like a teammate and a casual acquaintance. She was perfectly friendly in a group; she would start light, amusing conversations when he'd see her at his home on the occasions when she came over to hang out with Kurt, but that was it. As many times as she'd been over, and even with him and Kurt sharing a bathroom between their rooms, she'd never once—not ever—even glanced into his room in the new Hudson-Hummel abode. It struck him he had felt something was missing from the new room, and it wasn't his wallpaper with the cowboys who had watched over him since he was a tiny boy. It was something that had in a relatively short time become an essential ingredient of that old room. The new room felt strange and uncomfortable, even though it was so much more spacious, because it was Rachel-less; he didn't have one memory of Rachel being in there, or of talking to Rachel on the phone while sitting of lying down in there, or of logging on to his computer to Skype with her or IM with her or ask her for help with homework in there. Every time they saw each other she was perfectly nice; and she was professional, always about their singing; but that was it—there was nothing more. So maybe the feelings really were gone, and a performance was all that remained.

It wasn't until everything changed that Finn realized how much he'd come to depend on the fact that no matter where he was or what he was doing, if Rachel was anywhere in eyesight he could depend absolutely on looking her way and seeing her looking back at him in return. What had made him kind of nervous when he first met her had become such a stable part of his world, holding and fixing him in place, that he wasn't even aware it was there until it was gone. But gone it was, now, and Finn figured it was unlikely that it would ever return.

As rehearsal came to a close, Finn watched Rachel talking animatedly to Mercedes and Kurt. He saw Puck and Lauren come up to them, Puck slinging his arm around Rachel for a brief moment and pulling her into a hug as Lauren said something that sounded like, "Good save, Berry." He watched Tina and Mike and Artie and Brittany pass by and flash smiles to the 3Ds, Artie and Brittany reaching up to give them all high fives. He watched Santana go by, turning her head to call, "Berry, I'll be by later this afternoon to drop off that thing we were talking about," and saw Sam saunter past, saying "See you later, little D." It wasn't until Quinn demanded, for the third time, that he run through their campaign schedule for the afternoon that he even became aware that he was doing it again—staring, attention completely focused, at Rachel.

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	3. Chapter 3

_AN: Nothing but the story belongs to me, and even the story is mostly inspired by the creators, writers, and producers of Glee._

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No one was more surprised than Rachel to see how excited people were about the Losers' Ball. She wasn't kidding herself—it wasn't something the entire school was buzzing about; in fact, it probably wasn't even on the radar screen of at least half of McKinley High. But the event announcements had a respectable number of re-tweets and tumblr reblogs & "likes," and the number of "yes" and "maybe" attending responses on their Facebook page ensured that the night wouldn't find just her, Mercedes, Kurt, and Blaine dressing up in their very best for a glorified movie night. More than anything, Rachel was thrilled and surprised by the reactions of the other glee kids. All of them (well, all except the two who hadn't been told) had not only agreed to help with the preparations, but had enthusiastically committed to giving up the Junior Prom in order to attend the alternative event.

Rachel had worried about asking Lauren to help because she knew how much energy their newest member was devoting to her own campaign for prom queen; she was afraid that asking Lauren to give up some of her time to help them out with putting the movie dance clips together was too much of a sacrifice. But Lauren was totally cool with it, saying that under her leadership the A/V production would be Spielberg-worthy; in fact, she and Artie had drafted the entire A/V club to help and they were all planning on attending the Ball. When Mercedes and Rachel suggested that Lauren could delegate the project to someone else on the night of the dance so that she could be at Prom, Lauren laughed and said she had already made the point she wanted by running for Prom Queen—that self-confidence was the most powerful quality a person could have, and it would take you farther than worrying about whether other people said you were pretty or popular. Puck had told them that he could care less about going to Prom—that it was probably going to be lame, but he was doing it for Lauren, and that clearly anyplace the Puckmeister went would automatically become cool. Tina and Artie had never thought Junior Prom was that big of a deal and both were more than a little disgusted anyway by the ideal of a pastel princess-y theme, and Mike and Brittany were happy to go along with whatever their respective girlfriend and boyfriend wanted—especially when it gave them a chance to show off and lead others in spectacular dance routines.

Sam and Santana took the longest to make up their minds. Sam was reluctant to give up his Prom King nomination; like Quinn and Finn, he believed in the value of status and popularity. He'd been working hard all year to be number one in the school, only to take the number two spot to Finn time after time. The three Ds thought that he probably knew Finn would win, but might be hoping to lay the groundwork for automatically moving up to the number one spot after Finn graduated next year; not disappointing the gaggle of freshmen girls who had nominated him to be King would be an important part of such a strategy. But once he learned about the school's policy that was keeping Kurt from bringing Blaine as his prom date, Sam quickly changed his mind—the rule wasn't cool; Kurt should be able to go with whoever he wanted. If that's the way the school was going to play things, then Sam guessed he could miss out on the dance.

The problem for Santana wasn't giving up running for prom queen (the 3Ds, and everyone else, were still confused about why she was running in the first place; they thought it must be some sort of resurfacing of the old rivalry between her and Quinn, and they were glad for the sake of peaceful glee-relations that she was willing to let it go). Instead, Santana said she didn't want to be seen attending an event for self-designated "losers." Even after she learned about Kurt and why they were holding the Losers' Ball she resisted coming, only changing her mind after hearing Mike and Brittany going on about all the dances they were planning on staging. But still insisting that she needed cover for going, and for ditching Karofsky and the Junior Prom, she talked the 3Ds into using the Ball as a chance to practice some of their Nationals songs. That way, Santana explained, when people asked her why she was hanging out with the losers all night, she could tell them that Berry forced her to go under the threat of taking her lead parts in the competition away.

"Look," she said, "we all go to the freaking ball, we get to test the songs out in front of an audience, and, if anyone gives me a hard time, I get to bitch about Rachel being a control-freak; it's a win-win-win." Ignoring the part about blaming her, Rachel resisted at first; remembering the mattress commercial disaster, she was afraid of having the club do anything at a non-official event. She feared that Coach Sylvester would somehow find an obscure show choir rule that could be used to disqualify them from going to Nationals. Mercedes and Kurt finally persuaded her, though; they read through the rule book five times and made sure there weren't any problems, and Kurt insisted that they could easily argue this was not a New Directions performance because they would be absent two of their members—one of whom was the club's co-captain. Sensing that Santana really did want to come, Rachel finally gave in and agreed that they could practice Mercedes' and Kurt's duet and the number with Santana, Kurt, Tina, Artie, and her. Rachel had to admit that getting feedback from an audience could help them with any last minute adjustments to the numbers, especially when that audience would include the Warblers, who had agreed to come and sing for the Ball. They could also get feedback from some of the parents who had agreed to serve as chaperones—no teachers were being asked to attend in a further attempt to keep the event separated from any official connection with the school. Nonetheless, both Mr. Schue and Coach Beiste, after they learned of the Losers' Ball, said they were planning on stopping by "just a members of the community, to show our support."

Rachel was pretty certain that, despite the different reasons they all gave, each member of the New Directions was mostly agreeing to support the Losers' Ball for Kurt's sake. They really had become kind of like a family during their past two years together, she thought; while they might fight among themselves, they had each others' backs. No one wanted to risk losing Kurt again, and no one, whether they'd say it out loud or not, wanted to take part in an event that would exclude one of their own because he was being true to who he was.

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Everyone was throwing themselves into the planning and preparations with an energy Rachel had never seen from the group before. After calling around to several places where they could hold the ball and being unable to find someplace that was both the right size and in their budget, the 3Ds asked for ideas from the other glee members. The misters Berry had solicited and received donations that would cover all their costs so long as rental fees weren't too high, and the more they could save on rent, the more they had available for food and decorations. (Mercedes had to keep reining Kurt in on his elaborate decorating schemes, which could have easily run into the thousands of dollars if he had his way.)

The 3Ds were determined not to charge admission; they knew several of their fellow students were in families really struggling with finances in this economy and they didn't want anyone to have to stay away from the dance because of the cost. Mercedes' church sponsored a local Girl Scout Troop that was running a free "Prom Shop,"; Troop members had asked people to donate used prom gowns and accessories and, after gathering them, they approached local dry cleaners to see if the businesses would clean and press the gowns as a charitable donation. The Scouts also contacted tux rental places and got them to agree to donate a certain number of rentals for free to guys who couldn't rent a tux on their own. Anyone who wanted to could stop by the church and pick out a gown, a voucher for a rental, or whatever they might need that was there. The 3Ds included a link to the Girl Scout Troop's website describing the program on all of their event sites as a way of helping people know what was available. A few kids had come up to Mercedes in the halls to thank her; some had asked if they could use the Scout service even if they were going to the Junior Prom, and Mercedes told them not to worry, assuring them that's what it was there for. Others told her they were coming to the Losers' Ball because they were so happy to have learned about this service. Still other kids came up and asked Mercedes if she knew whether the Scouts would accept their purchased clothes as donations after the dance was over.

They had decided to carry out Rachel's initial plan of letting people make free will donations at the door the night of the Ball. The donations would be split in two, with half of whatever they received going to the Trevor Project, a national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth, and half being saved to use as start-up funding for a new club the 3Ds were going to start at McKinley next year; Kurt, and now Mercedes, had agreed that they should do what Rachel had suggested sophomore year and form a GayLesbAl (Gay-Lesbian-Alliance group) to help change the school's attitudes about sexual orientation. Next year, _everyone_ would be able to go to the Senior Prom as themselves, with whomever they wanted as their date. The Loser's Ball could help lay the groundwork for the new organization by raising initial awareness about it.

In the meantime, they still had to pull off this event, which meant finding a location that would fit their needs. It had been Brittany who came up with the solution.

"Why don't we hold it at our home?" she asked.

"Brittany, I don't think my home is going to be big enough, and kids aren't going to want to go there anyway," Rachel replied.

"No, not _your_ home; _our_ home." All of the group, gathered for lunch around a table in the cafeteria, looked at Brittany in confusion until Artie gently inquired, "And where is our home, Brit?"

"You know—our home; where we went to practice the week Coach Sylvester kept us out of the auditorium. It was fun there, with lots of pretty lights and music, and they had a snack bar and everything."

Santana understood first. "You mean the old roller-rink? The one April Rhodes used to run?"

Brittany nodded, happy someone finally understood her. "Yah; our home. It'll be especially good for Artie, because the floor is made for wheels to roll on."

Now the kids looked around at each other. Mike spoke up first. "That wooden floor is a perfect surface for dancing," he said.

"And there's a built-in sound system, and even a stage for the singers," Mercedes offered. "That would save us the costs of having to rent audio equipment and risers."

"And more than enough parking for the people who'll come," Tina said.

Puck jumped in, saying, "A dump like that is sure to come cheap; we could probably pay a third of the rent any other place would charge and that lame-o dive would still make more money than they usually bring in on a Saturday night."

Rachel looked over at Kurt and saw all sorts of decorating possibilities beginning to blossom in his expression. With a smile breaking out on her own face, she said, "A lame-o dive for the Losers' Ball; it's the perfect place. You're brilliant, Brittany! I'll call them right away."

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The roller-rink manager happily agreed to rent out the place for the evening; Rachel thought she was probably hoping that kids who had a good time at the dance would return in the future to go skating there. They were cautioned that no one could actually skate during the dance because of liability concerns, but agreed to let students use their light and audio systems. They also agreed that the students could use the snack bar for preparing and serving any food they brought in for refreshments. Kurt and Mercedes adapted the decorating plans they'd already started to take the best advantage of the venue, with Kurt saying it was even more retro than he could have hoped for, and Artie and Lauren started work on including a scene from the movie _Xanadu_ to the dance clips they'd be projecting.

Rachel's dads had let the kids take over the Oscar room in the basement as party-planning headquarters, and every corner of the room was full of decorations and supplies. The 3Ds were there constantly, joined by Blaine, who would drive over after Dalton got out so that he could spend time with Kurt and join in the fun of planning. And not a day went by without one or more of the other glee kids coming by to drop something off, share a new idea, help in the various projects, screen the increasingly complex and awesome A/V presentation Lauren and Artie were creating, or just hang out and join in the joking and laughter. It all felt like a dream to Rachel; she kept surreptitiously pinching herself to make certain this was real. Never, in her entire life, had she imagined that she'd be at the center of a group like this; never had she imagined that her house would be the place kids would come to hang out; never had she thought she would find so many friends who wanted to be with each other and with her. Although she didn't say it out loud, she knew that her favorite part of the Losers' Ball—the part she'd remember always, no matter what happened at the dance itself-would be these days of being a part of a group working so hard to create something special.

In addition to the overall organization, Rachel's particular job was choosing the music—but very soon, others assigned themselves to the music selection task force as well. One afternoon when he had stopped by with Lauren, Puck walked up behind Rachel as she was working on her laptop and quickly scanned the list of songs on her screen. He then turned to her with a scowl and said, "What is that, Rachel? Next year's New Directions set-list, or songs for the dance?"

Before she could respond, Puck continued. "Know what? Doesn't matter; not going to happen either way. Santana," he called across the room to where the girl was sitting with Brittany as they watched Lauren's and Artie's latest efforts on a lap-top, "get over here and take a look at this!"

Rachel was sputtering as Santana sauntered over, looked at the music, and said, "No. Freaking. Way. We are not playing only songs from the movies, Broadway tunes, and numbers by Streisand and Celine. This is a _dance_, Berry; we may be losers, but we're losers with excellent taste in music. Start putting these on the list." And she began to spew out the titles of songs so fast that Rachel could barely keep up; she stopped trying altogether when Puck joined in with his own list. Tina wandered over with suggestions of her own, and soon they had become a committee of four, with occasional songs being thrown out by others in the room. Rachel realized that she wasn't going to _control_ the music selections, so, instead, she decided to organize them, making columns for songs they'd ask the Warblers to sing, songs they'd be projecting from films, and songs they'd have Artie and the other A/V kids, as DJs, play.

Puck came up with the idea of adding karaoke as part of the evening. He insisted that it would help keep people from thinking this was a glee-event because karaoke was for everyone. "Besides," he said, "it's a way to vet members for next year. I don't need to go trying to recruit members in the locker room again and getting thrown into Port-a-johns for my trouble; been there, done that." Rachel, who had been cringing at the thought of some of the painful music that might result from open karaoke, couldn't help but see the logic once Puck explained the recruiting angle, and so they started another list of songs to have available for karaoke time. She was impressed with how serious Puck was when he talked about the benefit this would be to the glee club; she knew he loved singing, and being part of the group, but she realized that she hadn't taken the time to fully notice how important glee had become to him.

And he was really getting into the Losers' Ball; he'd gone from being the guy who thought prom and dances were lame to sometimes even out-bossing her in making sure everyone was getting their parts of the preparation done. There was only one thing about the Ball that he wasn't happy with, and he kept urging her, and Kurt, to change it: he was certain that they should let Finn know what was going on.

At Kurt's insistence, all the glee kids had agreed not to mention the event to Finn; even Brittany, after it had been explained to her several times by Santana, understood why Kurt wanted to keep it a secret. No one needed to be told to keep it quiet around Quinn; they all knew how singularly focused she was on being Queen and, as each day went by, they became more and more careful not to get in her way when she was in "campaign mode." But Puck, even though he promised not to tell, kept pushing them to change their minds. Kurt eventually got up and walked away when Puck started in on this, muttering that he didn't have time to listen to this again, and that this was about _his_ family, and Puck needed to drop it. That meant Rachel got the bulk of Puck's complaints.

"Finn should know, Rachel. He should have the chance to choose to do the right thing."

"Noah," she said, "it's already hard enough on Kurt to have the school maintain this policy. He doesn't need fighting about it in his home. And you know Finn has to go to the Prom; he's with Quinn—he's not going to leave her hanging."

Puck shook his head as the echo of his words from last year washed over them. "We don't know that, Rachel—I mean, we don't know that it will lead to fighting, and we don't know what Finn will do. Kurt really matters to him; he'd want to stick up for his brother."

"I know that, Noah." Rachel hesitated, remembering the last time she had asked Finn to stand up for Kurt, and how, while he had failed to do so at the time, he'd come around and planned a special tribute to show his step-brother just how much he mattered to him. "I know Finn loves Kurt like they're true brothers. But I—we can't ask him to do this, to make this choice. If he chooses Kurt, he'll hurt Quinn; someone's going to get hurt, and either way Finn will be hurt by having to decide what to do." Her voice slipped to a whisper as she said, "He's been hurt enough already; I can't bear to cause him more pain."

She stopped and was silent for a long moment, staring down at her hands, fingers twisting themselves over and over each other, until they were clasped by both of Puck's hands. Rachel looked up and saw compassion in his eyes as he told her, "Rachel, stop blaming yourself. It wasn't all you—in fact, it wasn't really you at all. It was me, and Quinn, and the fact that Finn hadn't ever faced it. And I don't want to hurt him anymore, either—you know that."

Seeing her nod, Puck went on. "But Rachel, he is going to be—not just hurt, but _pissed off_ that no one told him about this. He's going to find out; you know he will, sooner or later. He always does, and when he does, he loses it. I don't know how many times more he'll be able to handle learning the group, or people in it, have kept a secret from him. And when he finds out this was your idea—Rachel, right now? I think he might forgive you sometime; I think he already has, really, even if he won't admit it to himself. I think he might get his head straight about all this, and that you'll have another chance, _if_ that's what you still want. I don't want that to be screwed up for you. For_ both_ of you. And, even without all of that, Finn should be allowed the chance to do the right thing."

Tears were welling in her eyes as Rachel slowly shook her head. "The decision is Kurt's, Noah, not mine; it's Kurt's life, and I'm doing whatever I can to help with that. And Finn . . . he and Quinn are together; they've always belonged together. I tried and tried and, while he's been wonderful as a friend, there isn't anything more for me. If there ever was, that ship has sailed; there's nothing more I can do to get it right if he won't take what I want to give him. The story ends up with them together, and me out of the picture. So, if he gets angry at me? At least I'll have done right by Kurt. But thank you, Noah; I'm glad you decided, in the end, to be my friend."

Puck looked at her long and hard before giving her hands a final squeeze and saying, "What are you talking about, Berry? We were always friends."

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That night, after everyone left, Rachel stayed awake staring at her bedroom ceiling. For all the front she worked so carefully to maintain, she had never for a moment even tried to lie to herself. It was true that she still hurt when she saw Finn and Quinn together or thought about them being together. While familiarity with the sight and notion had changed the hurt just a little bit—as in feeling just long, huge, sharp needles, rather than daggers, of pain shooting through her— the hurt was still undeniably present. But what she told Noah was the truth—she was, slowly, coming to accept the fact that there was nothing there for her anymore. As hard as it was to admit it, it seemed like Quinn was right; Finn's choosing her, Rachel, was the temporary aberration, something that was never bound to last.

She had watched them the night of the benefit-concert-that-wasn't while Mercedes sang, and as she watched, Mercedes' words seemed to hit her with stunning force—maybe it _was_ time for her to stop pretending to be something she was not. She wasn't Quinn; she would never be Quinn. If Quinn was what Finn wanted, there was never any way things would work out between them. Even though he had told her she was beautiful, that meant nothing as far as a future between them was concerned, because all she had to do was look by his side and see who he had chosen. Hearing those words from him had transported her back to the nurses' office on Valentine's Day, that moment when for the first time (and at a time when it, it turned out, it was too late for the words to have meaning) he had told he she was beautiful. And then had admitted that while he felt fireworks when with Quinn, with her he felt nothing special, nothing worth trying to hold on to. And if, despite _all_ Quinn had done to hurt him—much more than she herself had done—Finn was able to forget and forgive in order to be with her? He _must_ truly have loved Quinn all along.

She and Finn were meant to be friends, nothing more. It was time to start moving on; to move forward; to let herself focus on all the others things that mattered in life. When she _didn't_ see them together, she was able, for moments at a time, to forget about Finn and Quinn. She _had_ come to find it was possible to walk down the halls of the school without feeling like she was being kicked in the stomach each time she saw one of Quinn's and Finn's campaign posters. Indeed, there were times when she could make it down an entire hall without even noticing the posters, because she was so busy talking to others about the plans for their ball, and about all the other things suddenly going on in her life.

Once her entire life's focus had been on becoming a star and it had seemed like there was no room in her life for anything else. Then Finn had been added in, and Rachel had worked hard to balance time with her boyfriend and time with her career preparation. Now, Rachel thought, she must have figured out a way to add hours on to the day, because she was keeping up her full schedule of school, all of her extra lessons, and had replaced Finn-time with planning for the dance. But as full as her days were, she was still finding ways to squeeze in more—trips to the mall with Kurt, Mercedes and Tina both for their outfits and for party supplies; movie-watching sessions with the other kids to see if there was just one more movie dance scene to include. And things not related to school, lessons, glee or the dance—going to a movie with Artie, Brittany, Puck, Lauren and Mercedes; going with Kurt, Blaine and Tina to see the community college production of West Side Story; mini-golf with almost all the glee kids. If sometimes it felt like she didn't recognize her life, she was more than happy to be living it and learning about the new ways it could be.

In the immediate future she was committed to pulling off a fabulous event for Kurt's sake, and to doing everything she could to make sure they _killed_ at Nationals. Looking toward the future beyond these things, tomorrow she would put the application for the summer program into the mailbox. Jesse had told her about the program last year, and, when she asked her mom about it, Shelby had raved about the opportunities and training the program provided. Rachel had downloaded and completed the application weeks ago and gotten reference letters from her ballet teacher, her vocal coach, and Mr. Schue; she'd even e-mailed Shelby to see if her mother had any contacts with people on the admissions committee who could be asked to be sure to look out for her application. But she hadn't sent it off, fearing that a full summer away from Lima might ruin any chance she could ever possibly have with Finn, because it would mean leaving him to Quinn for two and a half months. Rachel now committed herself to not letting anything hold her back, especially an unattainable fantasy. She would succeed with the Losers' Ball, she'd succeed at Nationals, and she'd move forward into a summer of success and into discovering even more about how her life could be, ready to meet new people and build on the success of her current friendships by seeing if she could make even more while preparing herself for the work she loved.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_AN: Nothing about Glee is owned by me._

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It was Friday, the final day of campaigning at school. Prom was tomorrow night, and Quinn had told Finn that they wouldn't be doing any events during the day because she would be spending all of it getting ready. She had hair, nail, and makeup appointments ready and her mom would be making any final adjustments to her dress. The school hours today were the last chance to make a good impression, and Quinn insisted that they needed to make it count. This was the day to shake hands and "make the ask," she said. In response to Finn's bewildered look, she explained that they needed to ask everyone to commit themselves to voting for Finn and Quinn and encourage them to go ahead and cast an early ballot. While they couldn't let themselves relax up until the moment voting closed at the Prom, the more early votes they could secure in the week of voting leading up to Prom, the more certain were their chances. And even if people weren't willing to actually cast their vote early, Quinn explained, "Once people have given their word, they're much more likely to keep it, even if they feel like changing their minds. It's basic political strategy, Finn; ask for their vote, get them to say it out loud, and you're likely to keep the vote." Finn thought again how very good she was at this; there were few things Quinn didn't know about getting her own way, and getting others to go along with what she wanted.

That's why Finn found himself pulling into the school parking lot that morning, Quinn in the passenger seat of his truck, twenty minutes before the school doors opened up. She insisted that just like any political candidate, they had to spend dusk until dawn (or, in McKinley time, from the moment school began until the last person went home from the last club meeting) making personal contact with as many different people as possible. To Finn's disappointment, she vetoed the idea of skipping classes to campaign (Finn had thought that would at least be a bonus of having to spend the day this way) because it could tarnish their image or get them in trouble, which might put them out of the running. Instead, she said they could each use class time to make eye contact with the students and to talk to them as class started up and ended. "You make an impression, good or bad, in every moment, Finn," she said. "It's vitally important today that _all_ of the impressions be positive ones." Their only break from asking and shaking would be an interview with Jacob ben Israel for his 24-hour-countdown blog posting on the prom court candidates.

Finn thought it was much too early to be at school; even when he didn't have long, tedious days ahead of him, he wasn't a fan of entering the halls of McKinley a minute before he had to. And he was never, under any circumstance, a fan of getting out of bed earlier than was absolutely required. When it was for practice—for sports or for glee club—he made himself do it, but this just didn't seem necessary. Especially since they couldn't get into the building yet. Finn guessed Quinn had had some idea about standing outside the doors and being the first ones in (_yeah, like there'd be a long line for that privilege_), but the unseasonal chill of the May morning changed her mind. "The last thing we need is to get colds the day before Prom!" So here they were, sitting in the truck. He'd thought they could put the time to good use by fitting in some of the make-out time that had been so scarce to come by lately, but an incredulous look from Quinn accompanied by her saying she was perfectly styled for the day and couldn't risk her look being mussed up soon put an end to that idea. Quinn was going over a map of the school on which she'd highlighted the most populated areas of every room and hall during each period and change of classes, cross-referenced with the places the various cliques they still needed to reach out to were most likely to be throughout the day.

Finn was just sitting, eyes wandering around the interior of the beat-up but already well-beloved vehicle Burt and his mom had helped him buy. Burt had found it cheap through a guy who worked for him at Hummel's Tire & Lube Shop, and had spent several Saturday afternoons helping Finn to get it in working order. It wasn't fancy or anything, but it was just right for Finn and he was proud of it. He'd also really loved spending time with Burt, and sometimes with Kurt, too, who'd obviously learned a lot about working on cars from his Dad, while they fixed it up; it made the car feel kind of like a metaphor for the care put into creating his new family relationships. (_Rachel's way of seeing the world had really rubbed off on him ; where once he'd had no idea of what the word meant, or that it even existed, Finn often found himself thinking about metaphors now._) He kind of wished they could go to the prom in his truck—it was unique, if not fancy, and had plenty of room so that Quinn's dress wouldn't get squished. And, since he already owned it, his only transportation costs for the night would be gasoline; Prom was a pretty expensive event, and Finn would have liked to save money where possible with all of the incidental expenses of a trip to New York City coming up soon. But he knew without even asking that Ernie would not fit in with Quinn's plans. (Finn had named the truck Ernie, because Burt helped him get it and he thought it was a nice connection; Kurt, upon hearing the name and explanation, had given Finn one of his long stares with the eyebrows going higher and higher before saying, "You named your truck after a Sesame Street muppet? You know, I would expect nothing else. And it's the thought that counts." Which Finn, who'd become pretty good at translating Kurt-ese, knew was Kurt's way of saying he wasn't jealous that Finn and his dad were becoming so close).

Right after Regionals, when Quinn had gone into full-scale prom campaign mode, she'd told him that transportation was one of his responsibilities. Finn hadn't thought about it too much at first, but after the fifth time Quinn mentioned it, he started to think about how they'd get to the prom. Putting the thought of his truck aside, he still figured they could save some money by going with others and splitting the cost of a limo—and, Finn thought, it would be kind of fun to be part of a big group riding around in one of those long things, seeing how many people could ride in there. So one night when Kurt dropped by his room with a glass of warm milk (Finn had thought warm milk would be really gross but had tried it that first time because he didn't want to hurt Kurt's feelings, and found to his surprise that he loved the stuff; it was delicious and very soothing right before bedtime), Finn asked his brother how he and Blaine were planning to go to the prom. Kurt didn't really respond; he vaguely said that he was leaving that up to Blaine. Finn figured that that made sense—Kurt was likely to be the one who, like Quinn, would handle the major details of clothes and accessories and stuff, and leave the simpler jobs for Blaine who was going as a guest—it wasn't like this was his school's prom, after all.

The next day in school, before Mr. Schue got them started in glee, Finn had turned to Puck, who was sitting beside him, and asked if he'd like to go in on a limo together. Puck had hedged, for a split-second looking panicked, as he said, "Uh . . . um . . ." and looked away. Following his eyes, Finn saw that Puck was looking right at Rachel, who was several seats away and on a different row, but who had apparently overheard their conversation, and who was looking back at Puck and very slightly shaking her head no.

For the first time since the week of their championship game, Finn had felt a sudden flare of anger surge up inside him, and he spit out, "What? Is Rachel going with you after all?"

"Chill, dude. No. 'Course not. It's just—I'm not going in a limo. Zizes isn't into that; she wants to show up at the dance in a way that will make an entrance, that has some attitude. She said a limo was too ordinary and, 'been there, done that.' We're riding there on hogs; going for the "Bat Out of Hell" Meat Loaf vibe. I could try to borrow another if you and Quinn want to join us; she could easily fit on the back of one with you driving. Whaddayou say?"

"Uh, I don't think that would go over too well with Quinn. She seems like the type to do it the traditional way. But thanks; I guess we'll just see you there."

Before Finn had time to check with anyone else, the issue had been resolved. Quinn, coming into the choir room, had taken her usual seat beside him and given him a piece of paper—a bill for the limo she had reserved the day after she bought her prom gown, right after Regionals. She'd told Finn that she hadn't been able to reserve it any earlier because she'd had to make certain the interior of the limo would set her gown's color off to the greatest advantage. "We'll be seen exiting the vehicle, Finn, and we wouldn't want people to see our clothes clashing with our car."

Finn, absently agreeing with her, had looked at the bill. Apparently being "responsible for transportation" just meant paying for it, not having to figure it out. Quinn had that covered, just like she'd thought through everything, to the last detail. It kind of reminded Finn of the way Rachel got preparing for a performance—she thought through every single aspect of music, costumes, choreography, expressions, lighting, and anything else that could be imagined long before anybody else had even settled on the song. And while it often meant that her plans had to get adjusted and readjusted as the group made decisions that didn't fit in with her already thought-out plans, it never seemed to phase her—Rachel adapted, but never gave up planning. Quinn wasn't like that part—she was more likely to insist that everything adapt to her preset plan for the Prom—but the amount of energy and detail that went into the process was similar. And both girls insisted that the end result be perfection.

Finn knew why planning their musical performances mattered so much to Rachel—they were _her_, who she was; they were her life; and, as she'd told him once, every single performance was a stepping stone paving the way to her career and her goals and dreams of Broadway, Tonys, and Grammys. Even when the performance didn't "count" for anything—even with no competition involved, like the duet she and Kurt did last fall after their duets competition (and Finn had known hearing their mash-up of "Happy Days/Come On Get Happy" that if those two had sung together for the competition _no one_ else would have stood a chance; not even he and Rachel singing their originally planned number could have beaten what Rachel and Kurt could do together). Even if it was to an audience of only one, as when she'd sung a prayer for Burt by the lake last fall, sung so beautifully that he'd convinced her she had to go to the hospital and sing, because how could Burt not hear and respond to that- even then, Rachel prepared for each and every aspect of her performance, make certain it was always star quality. But if he understood Rachel's drive about her music, Finn had to admit that he didn't understand at all why prom was _so_ important to Quinn; he knew it mattered to her (Finn figured the entire school knew that by now), but he realized that he didn't really get _why_.

"Quinn," he asked, causing her to look up from the map she was still perusing.

"What? Have they opened the doors yet? My watch says there are still five minutes left; maybe it's slow—give me your cell phone, will you, so I can synchronize our time pieces?"

"No, they haven't opened them," Finn replied. Actually, he had no idea if the school was open yet; he'd been so deep in thought that he hadn't paid a bit of attention to the school.

"Can I ask you something?"

Quinn looked at him again, hearing the tentative tones in his voice. With her eyes tightening just a little, as if bracing herself to respond to what he might be about to ask, she said, "Sure. Go ahead."

"Why does it matter so much to you? Prom, that is. What's so important about it?"

Quinn's face relaxed, and, with a slight laugh, she said, "I told you Finn—it's the ultimate status symbol; it'll put us on top, where we belong."

Finn slowly replied, as he had failed to do when she originally said this by his locker, "But, we're kind of on top already, aren't we? I'm the star quarterback, we won the championship game, we won Regionals, we're headed to New York—why do we need another status symbol?"

"_You're_ the star quarterback, Finn. I'm the girl dating the star quarterback. Winning Prom Queen means winning something in my own right. And it lays the groundwork—winning this crown leads to winning the Homecoming Crown, the Winter Carnival Crown, the Valentine's Senior Sweetheart Crown, and, finally, the biggest one of all—Senior Prom Queen of McKinley. Each win makes that final crown seem more inevitable in the eyes of the student body. And each crown is a symbol of status, and, as you know, status matters. Remember? It's like currency; have enough, and you can do whatever you want to do. But we know how easily it can slip away—all of us in glee have seen that, at least, all of us who have seen our positions in the school change since we became a part of the glee club."

Hearing Finn draw in a quick breath as if he was about to speak, Quinn hastened to say, "I'm not complaining about being in glee; not anymore. I know you love it, and I do, too. But you know it does come with drawbacks, and the major one is what it does—and will always do—to our social standing. It's like you said after the game—winning, being on top, meant no one was going to mess with you; it protected all of us in glee for a while. The status football brings allows you to keep doing glee without paying a price. Having the Junior class make me Queen will do the same for me. And besides, Finn, think of the advantage it will be in the future."

"The future?" Finn asked, totally bemused.

"Yes, the future." Quinn looked directly into his eyes, leaning slighting into him without making contact, lest she wrinkle an item of clothing, Finn guessed. "The better known I am in town, the more successful I'll be in the future. I'm doing this for us."

Finn couldn't make sense of what she was trying to say. "Successful? Quinn, do you think the world will care about how many crowns you get? I mean, I get what you're saying about high school and how it could help you here, but what does that have to do with the future?"

"People here in _Lima_ will care, Finn. People in this town are going to remember me, and they're going to like being able to associate themselves with the girl who won more crowns than anyone else in the history of McKinley High. It'll help to make me the stand-out realtor in town; people will come to me asking to list their houses with me to sell, and they'll come to me when looking to find a new home. It might bring even more business into the tire shop, which will increase our income and let us have a better home and life when we get married. I'm doing this for us, Finn; don't you see?"

Finn stared at Quinn. Too much was coming out all at once for him to be able to process. Quinn thinks they're getting married. And settling down here in Lima. Apparently he's going to work for his step-father. While he knows that he zones out sometime, Finn is as positive as he can be that's he's never heard these plans before, and he's one hundred percent certain that he never actually talked about them with Quinn. He was still quite and staring when Quinn, looking beyond him, suddenly started and said, "Finn! The doors opened! Come on, we have to get in and get going!"

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Grabbing his backpack and following her to the building, going to their lockers and then taking up their "starting stations" for the day's campaigning, Finn still felt stunned. He'd just heard his entire future laid out before him—a future that, from Quinn's telling, was already like a done deal, set in stone. It freaked him out to hear that she's already planned all these things; Finn wasn't sure what he was going to get for lunch in the cafeteria in just a few hours, and here was his entire life already decided for him. The feeling seemed familiar, and, after a moment, Finn was able to figure out why.

His mind reached back to that awful afternoon last year when Quinn had told him she was pregnant and when he'd felt like the walls of his life were caving in on him, pinning him down and trapping him in place. Once he'd been able to breathe, and to find a way to (just barely) function in the midst of all his confusion and fear, he'd known that he had to find a way to escape—not Quinn, and the baby, but the life that would come from being a teenage dad stuck without any purpose or future.

He remembered how his thoughts had gone to that first meeting a with Mr. Schue when his teacher told him that the drugs in his locker might keep him from getting his football scholarship . (_Finn still didn't know how they'd gotten there or what the Chronic Lady was supposed to be, but he was grateful that Mr. Schue had been willing to give him a chance to keep that off his permanent record. And, in the long run, he was so much _more_ than glad that, for whatever reason, the strange incident had led to him becoming a part of glee, to being able to do something he really loved with people who had become his closest friends_). With his mind latching on to the hope of that fore-mentioned football scholarship, Finn had known that it would only be possible if the team got better so that they could start winning; that had led him to convince Mr. Schue to help the team come together by learning how to dance, because dancing together in front of a stadium full of sports fans would be totally worth it if it helped him create a future for himself and his soon-to-be family. Finn had told Mr. Schue that afternoon in the restaurant that he couldn't become one of those guys living a dead end life, and he'd meant it; even if, as he'd thought then, he was going to be a father way before he was ready for it, he wasn't going to settle for the small life of a Lima loser. College had to happen, because college was the way out of Lima; once in college, he supposed, he'd figure out the next step, but he had no doubt that school would help him make a better life and he was determined to get there.

And then, when Ms. Pillsbury had told Finn that music might be another way to get a scholarship, he'd immediately started to do what he thought was necessary in order to make that a possibility. To this day, he still felt guilty about the way he'd used and lied to Rachel when trying to help himself; the more he thought about it, the more he realized how selfish he'd been and how rottenly he'd treated her. It made him feel even more amazed and overwhelmed that, as much as she must have been hurting, she'd forgiven him, given up the play, and come back to help him and the entire glee club. He'd figured back then, and he knew now, that Rachel could relate to what it was like to want more, to want to do better, to _be_ better, and to succeed. And he knew that when it came to him, to Finn Hudson, that Rachel had always believed—no, she'd always just assumed—he could do whatever he really set his mind on doing. (_Well, maybe not dancing; but anything else_).

All the while automatically smiling, reaching out to shake people's hands, uttering the words, "So, do we have your vote, dude? Thanks! You know you can vote now, right?," Finn kept on thinking. This time his mind moved back to the time last fall when Burt was in the hospital, and when he thought that he and God had it going on by communicating through a grilled cheese sandwich. He remembered Rachel coming to see him; remembered looking up at her (_something that rarely happened unless he was sitting on a low chair and she was right in front of him_) with all of the cowboys who'd ridden across his dreams throughout his childhood in the background behind her shoulders and face. It was a day he would never forget; he didn't think anyone would ever be able to forget the day they got to second base with Rachel Berry. And while Finn knew he'd zoned out for a bit while she was talking (_hearing your girlfriend say she wasn't planning on having sex until she was twenty-five could do that to a guy, as could being eye-level with her chest_), and while later events had, in his mind, seemed to be much more important than what she was saying before they occurred, Finn could still clearly recall Rachel stating that she wanted them to go the distance, that she wanted their relationship to last. And since she was going to be in New York and work on Broadway and win all sorts of awards and just _shine_, even bigger and brighter than she did now if that were possible, then that meant that she totally believed he would be there, too; that he'd be by her side when that brilliant, star-studded future became a reality.

She'd talked about their future a lot, Finn realized; and, realizing that, it hit him that he'd never been shocked or stunned when Rachel talked about what their lives would be like in five, ten, and twenty years from now. So many times she'd talked about the future, and each time it was about them both making their way out of Lima to the over-the-rainbow city of New York where _their_ dreams would come true. Even if he hadn't paid attention to every last detail, he always liked what he did hear. So maybe it wasn't that he minded having his future planned out for him so much as it was that he had a problem with the plans Quinn had made—and with the plans she had failed to make. There was nothing in there about college, or seeing other places, or bigger dreams of doing something special. Finn wasn't sure what, exactly, he wanted to be when he grew up, what job he wanted to do or where he wanted to be, but he knew that he had taken for granted that he'd be doing more than graduating from high school and starting to work in the Lube & Tire shop, getting married soon after, and settling down. The life Quinn had described seemed, well, too little, too closed in. It wasn't big enough and expansive enough to contain the expectations he'd apparently come to have about what his future would hold.

Finn hadn't been spending too much time thinking about the future since he and Rachel broke up; he was more or less living in and trying to enjoy the moment, to revel in the feeling of being on top of the school, and acknowledged champion and leader. But even if he hadn't been paying attention to them, it seemed that his dreams about the future were still knocking around in his mind somewhere. They weren't just Rachel's dreams in which he'd play a role, or her dreams for him; it was slowly hitting Finn that he had come to believe he would do great things because _he_ wanted to be great, and believed he could be great at something, whatever that something might be. College, which seemed to be left out of Quinn's plan—because even if she'd have to go to be a realtor, he knew that college wouldn't be necessary for him if he was going to work for Burt—had always been part of the plan; it was something his mom wanted for him. The picture Quinn painted made him feel like he was losing this, that he was losing out on something that he did _not_ want to lose or let go of. Finn had become attached to a future image of himself that he didn't want to let go, and that image could not be contained within the parameters of Quinn's constrictive picture. The image Quinn painted looked all wrong in Finn's eyes.

And not just for himself, Finn thought. It didn't look right for Quinn, either. A girl as smart as she was, with her drive and energy, could certainly do a whole lot more—in fact Finn, knowing how capably she almost always got things to go her way, was pretty sure Quinn could do anything she set her mind to. Once she, too, had had dreams of getting out of Lima. When she first told him was pregnant, what made her finally break out into tears was saying that she was afraid she'd ruined her chances of getting out of Lima, naming her fear that she'd now be a Lima loser forever. From what Finn understood from Puck's very few and far between comments about giving the baby up for adoption (and from Rachel's explanations about why Quinn had decided to give the baby to Shelby), Quinn had partly, at least, decided not to raise the baby so that she'd be able to reclaim her old life and the boundless future possibilities that came with it. Finn wondered when Quinn had become a person who was willing to settle for something less than her dreams. As he became aware of her signaling to him that it was time to wrap up campaigning for now and go to class, Finn heard a voice in his head. "Maybe," it said, "it happened when the two of you decided to settle for each other."

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After wolfing down some sort of unidentifiable cafeteria food for lunch, Finn was using the rest of his lunch period, as instructed, to keep on shaking hands and making the ask. He and Quinn had different lunch periods, so she wasn't there. That's why, when he saw Rachel coming out of the library, he felt comfortable going up to her with a grin and saying, "Hey, Rachel—hope I can count on your vote?" (_As Quinn kept saying, every vote counted; making sure they had Rachel's vote, especially with all of their competition also being in Glee, made campaigning sense, right?_)

"There's no need to hope, Finn; I already cast my ballot for you and Quinn." Rachel gave him a small smile.

"Oh—an early voter; no surprise there. I should have known, right?" Thinking, for maybe the millionth time since Regionals, how _wrong_ it felt to be this uncomfortable when talking to Rachel, Finn cast around for something else to say. "Well, thanks for the vote."

They stood there for a moment in silence. Then, as Rachel said, "Well, I'll see you," and was turning away to go, Finn awkwardly spit out, "Wait—Rachel, save a dance for me tomorrow night?"

As she stared up at him, Finn fumbled his words. "I mean, we're friends. Friends can dance with each other. And we're co-captains, right? We should present a unified front to the school—show them the whole team's together as we head off to Nationals. Help them support us as we get ready to head out?" The more he spoke, the stupider he felt-McKinley never had, and never would, be concerned about unity within glee-but Finn felt he needed to come up with a neutral reason for asking her to dance, both because he knew Quinn would grill him about it later, and because he could see the reluctance in Rachel's face, could see the "no" forming there.

And sure enough, he watched her draw in a huge breath and let it out in a sigh before she replied. "Um, thanks, Finn, but I won't be at the Prom. It was a good idea, though."

"Wait—you're not going? To our Junior Prom? Why not?" Finn was flabbergasted; Rachel wasn't even _going?_ Everyone would be there and Rachel would be left out? And then it hit him. _Right. We were going to go together_. It was another thing she had gone on and on about last summer, saying how great sharing the glamour of a formal school event would be for putting them in the proper frame of mind to embrace the sophistication and excitement of New York. She'd even had her dress planned out, telling him about what she wanted to wear in minute detail—and what _was_ it with girls and their prom dresses, Finn wondered. Maybe Kurt understood it; in fact, Kurt almost _certainly_ understood it. He'd have to ask his brother for an explanation, because it looked like significant portions of his life would be spent listening to girls telling him about clothes they wanted to wear on special occasions. Finn couldn't relate; choosing which color t-shirt to throw on underneath whatever plaid button-down shirt was closest to hand when he got dressed in the morning was about as far as his thinking about clothes went. He wondered what Kurt was wearing to prom, and thought that if he was going with someone other than Quinn—who had insisted on having absolute control of his wardrobe—Finn would probably have totally relied on Kurt to give him advice about getting a tux and everything. He remembered what a good job Kurt did of helping him pick out a jacket and tie to wear to Quinn's house a year and a half ago; Kurt was totally the man when it came to fashion. He wondered what Kurt would have thought about the dress Rachel had described wanting last summer, and thought that if she had been going to the dance year, Kurt would probably be giving her advice on her wardrobe, since they'd become such good friends.

Finn had known last summer that it wasn't just getting in a "New York frame of mind" that had made Rachel be so excited about the dance; he'd known that a lot of her excitement was because she'd never been asked to a formal school dance before, because she'd never had a guy to go with before. The huge mess with Jesse had all gone down last year long before Prom, and so Rachel, who'd thought for a while that she would be going as Jesse's date to the Senior Prom, had had that dream snatched away from her. As much as she insisted that she had her career to focus on and didn't have time to miss minor things like not attending high school dances, Finn _knew_ Rachel, and he knew that she really did want to be able to enjoy all the ordinary parts of high school life, too. And, once again, it looked like that wasn't going to happen.

Looking at her, and then quickly away, Finn said, "I'll miss you." And then, feeling a bit flustered, and a lot guilty, even though he hadn't technically done anything wrong because they _were _broken up, and she _had _cheated on him, but that didn't seem to matter when faced with the knowledge that she wouldn't be at the dance sort of because of him, Finn hung his head down and muttered, "Rachel, I'm sorry . . . I know . . . ."

"Don't worry about it, Finn," she firmly said. "There's nothing to be sorry for. And don't worry about the election; you and Quinn are sure to win—after all, the word win even rhymes with your names; it's a sure thing. So congratulations in advance." And with that, she walked off down the hall. And Finn realized that, yet again, he was just standing, this time feeling sad and guilty, watching her go.

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Mr. Schue had cancelled glee rehearsal, knowing that everyone's mind was so focused on the big dance that he wouldn't be able to get even Rachel to fully concentrate on music today. Knowing that they had the time free, Quinn had scheduled their interview with Jacob ben Israel during the period usually devoted to glee. They still had the remainder of the school day to campaign; after that, Quinn had them dropping by the Friday afternoon clubs that would still be meeting on school grounds, hitting each one just as the meetings were starting or ending. Finn found himself just wishing it was already Sunday, with the Prom behind them, so that the totally exhausting campaigning would be at an _end_ and he could feel like he'd gotten his life back. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd had the energy to play a video game; maybe, Finn thought, he'd invite Puck and Artie over on Sunday for an all-day zombie-blasting marathon. He could ask them at the dance tomorrow night.

Feeling Quinn lean into his side as she simultaneously leaned forward, Finn realized the interview must be coming to a close. He had only had to speak at the beginning of the interview to deliver his final campaign statement (Quinn had written it out for him and made him practice it until he was syllable-perfect in his delivery). Quinn had told him in advance that she'd handle any questions Jacob asked; that all he needed to do was look confident like a leader and a champion. He'd stopped listening when Quinn began to tell Jacob in meticulous detail every single aspect of the clothes they would be wearing, and why they (she) had chosen the colors and flowers and accessories and what everything was meant to signify. _Seriously—what _was_ it with clothes? So not a part of his universe of interest or care, Finn thought._ That final lean into him meant that Quinn was preparing to wrap things up, to leave Jacob with his final impression of them as the most-royalty-deserving couple. This entailed, before she spoke, projecting an image of closeness and comfort with each other, Quinn said; she'd told him that she would be gazing up at him and that he needed to look back down into her eyes like she was the only thing he could see. The look she turned on him seemed to say that Quinn thought he was the most brilliant and wonderful person on the planet—it was the way Lois Lane looked at Superman. Finn knew that wasn't how Quinn really felt about him—not like he was Superman; maybe Shaggy or Scooby Doo, or SpongeBob, but not Superman. But he had to admit, it was a pretty intense look, and it might convince people who didn't know him if Jacob included the look as part of the interview he aired on his website.

Before Quinn could being her "closing argument," Jacob spoke up. Finn had a sudden feeling that he had been stringing them along by listening patiently to their statements and Quinn's wardrobe review; this was Jacob, and Jacob's journalism consisted of scoops and scandal, exposes and explosive bits of gossip. Finn didn't know what was about to come, but he didn't have a good feeling about it.

"So, Quinn," Jacob's voice began with his customary, high quaver, "any comment on how your one-time rival, who lost out to you in the battle for the school quarterback, is striking back by throwing a party tomorrow night to compete with the Prom? They say revenge is a dish best served cold, so I suppose waiting three months to get back at you is the sign of a ruthless, Klingon-like mind at work."

Quinn looked blank; controlled, but blank. Finn listened as she carefully inquired, "Excuse me?"

"You know—the Losers' Ball being thrown by Rachel Berry. Rumor has it that Rachel's throwing an anti-prom in order to make fun of people who think that Prom, and being on the Prom Court, matters more than the important things in life; to mock people who think high school will be the best days they know; to ridicule those who'd go to any lengths to win a plastic crown. Any comment you'd like to make?"

Knowing this was the first time she'd heard any of this, Finn was astounded to see how well Quinn was able to mask her feelings, and to hear her graciously respond that of course everyone was free to hold their own events—the more fun the better, right, and if Prom wasn't the thing for some people, she, Quinn, was more than happy that they were finding their own ways to enjoy themselves.

Jacob looked disappointed not to have gotten any type of reaction from Quinn. He tried one more time. "So no comment about, or message, for Rachel?" Quinn replied no, reminding Jacob that they were teammates in glee and worked perfectly well together; that, as far as she was concerned, there was no rivalry between them and no message that needed to be delivered. She then thanked him for his time and, without trying to make her final statement, stood up, gently pulling Finn after her. As they walked away, Finn could hear Jacob calling after him, "Thank you, by the way, Finn, for setting Rachel free and giving me another chance at her. Any advice on moves that would work for me?" Finn quickened his pace to match Quinn's as they turned the corner of the hall and moved into the empty choir room.

Ready to compliment Quinn on how well she'd handled Jacob, Finn took three steps back once he saw the look on her face. As soon as they were alone, it had transformed into a mask of fury; Quinn's whole body was shaking, her hands curled in fists, and her eyes wet with unshed tears of rage. "How _dare_ she!" Quinn hissed. "She _won't_ leave us alone—me, or, especially, you! Finn," she began, menacingly advancing toward him, "did you know _anything_ about this? _Anything?_"

"Of course not!" Finn answered. "This is all new to me. I mean, I just learned today that Rachel wasn't going to be at the Prom, but she didn't say anything about another dance."

Seeing Quinn's glare fixed on him, Finn hastened to explain, "I was asking for her vote, Quinn, and she said she'd already cast it for us. And then she told me she wasn't going to be at the Prom. That's all. And to think I felt sorry for her, and guilty, and . . . ." Looking at Quinn's face, from which the anger hadn't abated in the slightest, Finn figured that now was a good time to shut up. "I didn't know anything, OK?"

Quinn turned from him, exclaiming with a break in her voice, "Why can't she _leave me alone_; why can't she leave me _anything_? She has to try to ruin this for me, too, and to ridicule me in front of the entire school." And then, to Finn's astonishment, Quinn burst into tears, an outburst so unexpected from the normally cool and collected Quinn that he automatically reached out to try to comfort her, not having any chance to try to think through what they had heard and to make sense of it. Before long, she stopped, looked at the clock, and saying, "I've got to go redo my make-up before next period. I'll see you after school, as soon as the last class ends, OK?" she walked out of the room. Still shaken by Quinn's completely-out-of-character emotional melt-down, Finn slowly walked out of the room. As he began walking vaguely in the direction of his next class, his eyes came into focus as he saw Rachel standing at the end of the hall, right by the Prom King and Queen display cabinet. Reacting out of total instinct, Finn quickened his pace and began to stride toward Rachel, calling loudly, "Hey! Wait up!"

Rachel looked startled at his tone, so different from the way Finn had sounded when they spoke a few hours ago. He came up and towered over her, throwing out the words almost before he stopped walking, "What the hell, Rachel! You _never_ know when enough is enough, do you?"

"Wh—what? Finn? What are you talking about? What's wrong?"

Rachel looked up at him with concern in her eyes, and it was that that made Finn snap. He remembered how guilty he had been feeling just a short time ago about ruining things for her, and, barely acknowledged beneath the guilt, how disappointed he was that her plans of last summer weren't the ones that would be their reality tomorrow night, that they weren't still together so that he could be going to the Prom with her. Fueled by conflicting emotions, and with the final thought that everything was this way because of _her_, because she had cheated on him with Puck, and that it was her fault in the first place, Finn exploded.

"Just _stop_ it, Rachel. Leave me and Quinn alone, would you! Keep away from her; keep away from me; keep out of my life!"

The hurt that flooded her face raised even more upsetting emotions in him as he heard Rachel gasp, "Finn! I don't—I don't understand! What's happened?"

"Right. Sure. Come _on_, Rachel—another dance? An "anti-Prom"? What did he call it—a Losers' Ball? How appropriate."

Rachel's face stilled, and her hurt look turned into one that was wary. "Oh, so you heard about that? What do you know? Who . . . ?"

"What does _who_ matter, Rachel?" Finn hadn't thought he could feel angrier, but he'd been wrong. Apparently he'd been hoping, somehow, that Jacob had been mistaken, or lying, or trying to cause trouble. Because when he heard Rachel's words confirming it, when he had to face the realization that she was, actually, doing this, he went ballistic.

"What the _hell_ does _who_ matter? What is this—just a cheap shot to try to take Quinn down? A trick, something you thought you'd use to make me jealous by going somewhere else with some other hapless victim as your date? Haven't you learned yet—that isn't going to work! I'm with Quinn—get used to it! You trying to humiliate her like this, to make fun of her for caring about being normal and having a normal life with normal friends instead of being stuck as a loser? That's low, Rachel, even for you. You're just going to end up making yourself look bad, like always; you may as well give it up, now."

Rachel was standing stock still; her face was frozen like a marble statue. He'd thought Quinn was the master of hiding her feelings, and had always been able to read Rachel's every emotion as it flitted across her face. But if Rachel's face was expressing her feelings now, what she was feeling was absolute iciness, like that iceberg about to bring down the Titanic; for the first time, Finn couldn't read her, couldn't tell what she was thinking at all.

In clipped, short syllables, Rachel asked, "Is that what you think?"

"Yeah," Finn spat back. "What else am I supposed to think?"

"That's what you _really_ think?" the ice-sculpture that was once Rachel Berry asked a second time.

The contrast between his inner emotions and her extreme frost seemed to flame Finn's anger even more. "Yes, that's what I really think. God knows I knew you could be mean, Rachel, but I guess I'd let myself forget. And, even after _everything_, I didn't think you'd be this petty and small. You need to just _back off." _

Rachel, a hint of anger finally beginning to suffuse her frozen façade, spoke in low, even tones.

"You don't know anything, Finn. But fine. _Fine_. Believe what you want. I don't owe you anything; not an explanation, not an apology, not _anything._ I'm done with apologies—I'm surprised you haven't drowned in them by now. In fact, I'm just done. This is me, backing off. And while I'm doing that, how about you do the same. _Stop_ staring at me; _stop_ coming up to talk with me when Quinn isn't around; _stop_ playing with my feelings. I'm more than happy to give you _exactly_ what you are asking for. This—starting right here, right now— is a clean break. We'll finish the year leading glee because it's too close to Nationals to shake things up. Next year, we'll figure out something different for co-captains. Now, watch me go—this is me leaving you alone. Or better yet, _don't_ watch; I'm going, and I won't be looking back. You know what, Finn?" And her voice trembled with the force of her suddenly overwhelming and incensed fury. "_Forget you!_"

His mouth agape, and still shaking with fury of his own, Finn ignored her command to look away and watched her stalk down the hall and then break into a run as she rounded the corner. As he stood there, still staring at the place where she'd disappeared from his sight, he felt a presence beside him. He glanced down and registered that it was Santana just as she opened her mouth to speak.

"You're an idiot, Finn. You know that, right?"

"And again with the meddling in other people's business," Finn bitterly replied.

Santana dispassionately said, "Nope. No meddling; I won't even bother to point out to you what you can't see."

"What? What are you talking about?" Finn asked exasperatedly.

Looking up at him without bothering to hide her faint disgust, Santana shook her head as she answered, "This isn't about you, you know. And Berry is a lot of things—annoying as hell and a damned know it all—but she isn't mean. We've all, me especially, given her every reason to be so over and over, and she's never dished it back to us. You should know that."

His breath coming out in a sudden huff, Finn sarcastically asked Santana, "Oh, so going to Puck to try to get back at me wasn't mean? Give me a break."

The disgust on Santana's face was now more than faint. "Get over yourself, Fidiot. I was tormenting her non-stop, throwing what you and I did in her face, and you just stood there and watched her take it. You didn't do a thing to try to make her feel better, did you? You left her alone; you let me flirt with you while she watched—yeah, she was there in the hall that day after her glee club meltdown; didn't you even notice? And did you ever try to tell her how you almost cried like a baby after we did it? Did you bother to try to reassure her that it "didn't mean anything" to you because I wasn't Rachel-fricking-Berry?"

Seeing his face set in stubborn resistance, Santana continued. "While we're on the subject of "being mean," just how kind and caring was it for you to only agree to have sex with me because I told you that you could use it to make Rachel jealous? She's all kinds of crazy, you moron, but she isn't mean, and she never does anything to _try_ to bring other people down. Most of the time, she's annoyingly butting into other people's business in crazy attempts to help them, like now."

"What are you _talking_ about, Santana?" Finn, emotional exhaustion beginning to overwhelm him, asked. "How is trying to humiliate Quinn helping anyone, or not being mean?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Frankenteen, this has nothing to do with you; nothing to do with Quinn. This is Berry trying to be a girl scout, and doing a damn good job of it. And out of every _single_ person in this school, _you're_ the one who should be going down on your knees to thank her for what she's doing. In fact, you hypocrite, _you're_ the one who should be leading the way. But I guess words are just words to you, and follow through doesn't matter."

"_What the hell_, Santana?" None of this made any sense to Finn, and he was too confused and angry and tired to even try to figure it out.

"Forget it. I'm out," Santana responded, walking away and tracing the path Rachel took moments earlier.

Finn shouted after her as she walked away, "You can't just throw stuff like that out there and not tell me what it means! Santana!" But she kept on walking, flicking her hand back in dismissal as she rounded the corner.

As they came out of their last class together that day, Puck came up to Finn. He'd been shooting dagger-glances at Finn all during class, and as soon as the bell rang he made his way over to his former best-friend.

"Hey, lay off Rachel!"

Finn's face hardened. "What, are you with her now? Is that what this is about-you two are having a party of your own to get back and me and Quinn for not being with the two of you? You promised me to stay away from Rachel, but why should I trust _you_ to keep your word?"

Looking ready to punch him, Puck restrained himself and instead attacked with words. "Look, jerkwad: One: I'm. Not. With. Rachel. Unlike some, when I give my word I keep it. Two: how do you figure that you get to keep saying who can and cannot be with Rachel when you've been with Quinn for over three months? You think she's never allowed to be with anyone else because you decided she wasn't good enough to forgive? You know how stupid that is, right? And you know you were an idiot to let her go like that in the first place, don't you?"

As Finn was just looking at him stonily, Puck continued. "She's better than all of us, man, and she's been working her ass off to do a huge thing and she's doing it fucking brilliantly. _You_ should be the first one there supporting her, and instead you go and try to tear her down. Not cool, man."

Finn angrily responded, "First Santana, now you; what the _hell_ is going on?"

Puck shook his head. "Nothing doing, man. I gave my word to keep silent, and, like I said, I _keep_ my word."

Attempting sarcasm, Finn threw his hands up and said, "Oh, I guess I forgot to check my calendar this morning to see that this is "Stand up for Rachel, give crap to Finn" day. If I'd known, I'd have just stayed home in bed."

"Get _over_ yourself, dude," said Puck. "You want to know anything, talk to your bro."

"Huh?" said Finn. "You just said you wouldn't tell me anything."

"Not _me_, you douche." Puck rolled his eyes. "Your brother. Thin kid, high voice, freaky sense of style, knock-your-socks-off voice? You know—your _bro-ther_."

Absolutely, utterly, and totally confused, Finn exclaimed, "What does _Kurt_ have to do with this?"

Puck began to back away, but his head was still jutted forward toward Finn. "Nuh-huh. Not my story to tell. But _this_ is: Lay. Off. Rachel. 'Cause I _never_ promised that I wouldn't kick your ass if an ass-kicking was due." And he strode off, leaving Finn first gaping, and then turning to punch a locker behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: Sorry it has taken so long to update the story; life and other distractions got and get in the way. As is now obvious, the story is A/U in terms of the events that happen, but I've stuck with the story I originally planned out. Hopefully the characterizations are still close enough to make it feel like it _could_ have happened this way as a means of letting the characters explore their various dynamics and development._

_As is true of the last time I posted, I own nothing connected with Glee and am in no way affiliated with the show._

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The only clear idea in Finn's head by the time he'd gone through his series of confrontations with Rachel, Santana, and Puck was that he needed to talk to Kurt, like, _yesterday_. He was beyond being able to make sense of anything at this point, and, according to Puck, Kurt was the one with the answers. The answers to _what_, Finn didn't know. That, apparently, was the problem-something was going on, and everyone seemed to be in on it except for Finn.

Unfortunately, it continued to be the problem, or at least _a_ problem, because by the time Finn finally got home on Friday night, Kurt wasn't there. Quinn had kept them going with the campaign until late in the evening. He lost track of how many snacks he covertly snagged from successive club meetings to try to deal with his hunger, because Quinn hadn't thought that food or dinner was a necessary part of the schedule. When possible, he also grabbed ice for his hand, still stinging from punching the locker after talking to Puck.

Once the campaigning was finally done, Quinn insisted that they go back to his house; she wanted him to try on his tuxedo one last time so she could make sure it was all perfect and that he knew how to properly put on the cummerbund and bowtie. Finn agreed, but he had three to-do items on his _own_ agenda that were going to come first; the tux stuff was just going to have to take a back seat.

One: food. Real, substantial, meal-like food.

Two: his sports ice pack, always kept ready in the freezer in case of an emergency, for the swelling on his hand.

Three: getting Kurt to agree to talk to him once Quinn left.

Numbers one and two were swiftly accomplished-he grabbed the ice pack with his damaged hand and the plate of food his mom had left in the refrigerator for him with the other as soon as they walked through the Hudmel kitchen door. Ice on hand, he quickly ate his dinner; however, although it eased his hunger, it didn't do anything to eradicate his exhaustion. Quinn refused offers of food, simply waiting (kind of impatiently, Finn thought) for him to finish so that they could do the final clothes fitting. Dinner finished, Finn rinsed off his plate and utensils and put them in the dishwasher and then set out to knock off the third item on his list. This, however, turned out to be impossible-his brother wasn't anywhere in the house.

Finding his mom on the computer back in the den, Finn asked her where Kurt was. Carole gave Finn a quick hug and examined his hand as she replied,

"At Rachel's, of course. You remember, honey—he's sleeping over there tonight. He said he needs to get an early start on styling the girls tomorrow so that he'll have plenty of time to, um, what were his exact words? Oh, yes-'perfect his own ensemble.'"

Finn must have had his confused look on his face, because his mom continued, saying,

"You know, styling them—doing their hair and make-up, overseeing their wardrobes, consulting on last-minute accessory choices? He told us all about it last night after dinner . . . oh, that's right," Carole said, looking between the two of them.

"You and Quinn were at the lacrosse team's barbeque for dinner, weren't you? Well, that's where he is; he told us it would be easiest just to spend the entire day there, since everyone was gathering at the Berrys' before heading out to the dance. Mercedes is sleeping over tonight too, and Tina and Lauren promised to show up early in the morning or face the 'Wrath of Kurt.' Are you going over then too, Quinn?" Carole asked, turning to the silent girl standing by Finn's side, her hand in his.

Finn could feel Quinn's grasp on his hand tighten when Rachel's name was first mentioned; while initially he was glad that she was holding the unbruised hand, he started to wonder if maybe it would have been better if the one already damaged had just been hurt some more. The way Quinn was progressively crushing his good hand meant that this one might end up in even worse shape than the one he'd slammed into the locker. _Gonna need another ice pack_, Finn thought to himself.

Nothing of Quinn's distress showed on her face, however, as she politely answered his mother. No, she said, Kurt wasn't doing her styling.

"He has enough to handle with all the others, doesn't he?" Quinn lightly laughed, adding that she would be getting her hair and make-up done at the beauty salon.

"And you know, Mrs. Hudson—sorry, I mean, Mrs. Hummel—my mother has her heart set on taking our pre-prom photos at our house—she said she's been picking out spots for prom poses since I first started kindergarten. That's why Finn and I made plans to have the limo pick us up there and take us to Breadstix and then straight on to the prom. It's too bad, but we just couldn't make the gathering with the others."

Finn was trying to figure out if Quinn had really known about the make-up and hair thing and the gathering at Rachel's before his mom mentioned it, because if not, she was almost as good of an actress as Rachel. He sure hadn't heard about any of this—not that he _would_ have been told, or paid attention to and remembered if he had heard, about a "fixing your hair for the dance" get-together. Finn noticed his mom's brow had slightly creased.

Looking at them both, Carole said, "Of course your mom wants you to leave from your home, Quinn; I should have realized and not just assumed you two would be going from Rachel's house with the rest of the group."

Finn could feel his own brow beginning to crease in a mirror image of his mom. Something she had said was bothering him; he wasn't sure what, exactly, the problem was, but something wasn't making sense.

Carole continued. "Well, tell me what time the limo is picking you up so that I can swing by for some pictures of my own before you head out. Burt can bring our contribution to the meal over earlier, and then I'll go to join him at the Berrys' after seeing the two of you. They'll be there longer with the dinner and all, so I won't miss out on taking photos of Kurt and Blaine and the rest of the kids."

She looked up at her son for a moment, then turned to include Quinn in her glance before turning back to Finn.

"It's nice—romantic, I mean—for the two of you to go out to eat on your own. That's a lovely way to start a special evening, and, after all, your Junior Prom is supposed to be special."

There wasn't anything particularly special or romantic about it, Finn thought, although he appreciated the fact that his mom was making an effort to say how nice their plans were—especially since he had a strong feeling that she hadn't been too happy when he started dating Quinn again after the way their relationship had gone the first time. The truth was that he and Quinn were eating at Breadstix because, like everything, it was part of the campaign plan. Almost all the high school kids went there when eating out (it wasn't like there were a whole bunch of choices in Lima), and Quinn wanted them to be seen there together by the other students. She had them arriving early and was planning on leaving right after the main dinner rush started so that their happy departure for the prom would be seen by as many voters as possible. That would get them to the prom itself early, she calculated, allowing them to take up a position just inside the doors of the gym as the prom-goers arrived.

"It will seem like we're the host and hostess," Quinn explained. "It'll give us a psychological advantage and make our winning feel inevitable to people as they walk in the door."

Finn thought she was probably right about the effect it would have, but he wasn't happy about having to do it; he'd look like an overgrown doorman imitating a penguin and would feel like a fool. And he was starting to seriously fear there'd be permanent damage to his ability to hold and throw a football if he had to shake one more hand.

Looking to his side to see if he could get away with easing out of Quinn's grasp, Finn saw that his girlfriend was giving him one of those _I-can't-believe-how-much-you've-messed-up-mister-but-I'm-pretending-nothing's-wrong-because-we-aren't-in-private_ looks. Before he could figure out what he'd done wrong this time—had he made the comment about the penguin doorman out loud?—his mom started talking again.

"Kurt's so thrilled to be taking Blaine to the dance; he hasn't been talking about anything else for weeks. I think Burt and I could recite every detail of his plans and hopes for tomorrow from memory! If it weren't for the fact that he's so adamant about the need for beauty sleep to look one's best, I think his excitement about tomorrow would keep him up all night."

His mom got up from her seat and reached both of her hands up to cup Finn's face; a familiar gesture she'd been doing as long as Finn could remember.

"It's too bad you boys aren't going together so we can get some photos of our pair of handsome young men together; promise me, Finn, that you'll have someone take a picture of you and Kurt with each other when you meet up at the dance, OK?"

Quinn swiftly promised that she'd make certain the photo was taken. Then, before Finn could say anything more to his mom, Quinn was purposefully tugging Finn's hand to lead him upstairs to try on his tux.

Finn let Quinn pull him along, wincing at the additional strain on his hand. He was certain that he was missing something, something his mom had said that made no sense, something just beyond his grasp that he was sure he could figure out if he concentrated for a little bit. Or maybe if he got the chance to rest for, like, twelve hours.

But with Quinn right there, already ultra-tense in her under-twenty-four-hours-to-go countdown mode and made even _more_ tense by the mention of Rachel, Finn was too tired and too stressed to even try to think through the conversation with his mom and isolate the reason for his unease. He was beyond being worn out from the non-stop pace of the past weeks, from all of the emotional drama of the day, and from how_ fricking_ much his hands _still _hurt. He_ knew_ he was missing something, though, and he was frustrated that he couldn't just get a simple answer from Kurt tonight_._

Quinn left once she was satisfied that he had his cummerbund and bow tie out and ready to go, that his shoes were perfectly polished and he'd selected the correct socks, and that his dress shirt and tux fit perfectly without a wrinkle to be seen on them. (How he was supposed to wear the tux tomorrow night and ride in the limo without getting it wrinkled or creased was a mystery he supposed she'd reveal in due time.)

She gave him a perfunctory kiss, saying it was late and that Kurt wasn't the only one who needed his beauty sleep.

"You're talking about me, right?" Finn tried to joke, but she didn't respond, not even with a twitch of her eyebrow to acknowledge his lame attempt at humor.

As she was walking out the door, though, Quinn paused, turned back, and said, "Since your mother clearly never heard you say anything about any of our plans for tomorrow, please make sure she knows we'll be gone by 5:00 p.m., Finn. I wouldn't want her to miss getting photos of her son and his girlfriend on the night of their Junior Prom. I'll see you around a quarter of, okay?"

She looked for a brief moment into his eyes and Finn saw that her face was a strange mixture of emotions. He could identify annoyance, impatience, and anger easily, but also in the mix he thought he saw hurt and even a little bit of nervousness or fear. Then she quickly stepped outside and closed the door behind her. In what seemed like an instant, he heard her car engine start up and saw her headlights as she pulled out of the driveway and onto his street.

Knowing he should probably call her to try to figure out what that look meant, Finn just couldn't make himself do it. He was completely drained; he felt like the undead, and he simply didn't have the energy for any more emotional drama today. Whatever he'd done wrong could (and probably would) wait until tomorrow to be dealt with.

He dragged himself upstairs, thoroughly brushed his teeth (Rachel's lectures on the importance of dental hygiene-her smile alone was a more than convincing argument for every point she ever made about it-had left their mark, so zealous brushing had become second nature to him), and within ten minutes had collapsed onto his bed. For a split second, he started to think about the day's encounters with Rachel, Puck, and Santana, but he quickly shut that part of his brain down. He knew that if he let himself go there, he'd start to get angry and, zombie-like or not, would be up for hours.

Since he was past having the ability to try to think straight about anything, he told himself to let it all wait until the morning. Without even bothering to hit his iPod to play his "sleep soundtrack," he closed his eyes, expecting to be zonked out in seconds.

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An hour later, Finn was still awake. Each time he thought he was zoning out, the door shutting down the afternoon's encounters cracked open and the memories, the anger, and the confusion seeped back in. He kept seeing the frozen mask that had become Rachel's face when he yelled at her, only to have the image replaced with Santana's scornful glance and Puck's defensive glares.

Jacob's words about Rachel trying to_ "mock people who think high school will be the best days they know; to ridicule those who'd go to any lengths to win a plastic crown"_ alternated with Santana's _"_you're_ the one who should be going down on your knees to thank her for what she's doing . . . _you're_ the one who should be leading the way"_ and Puck's _"she's been working her ass off to do a huge thing . . . You should be the first one there supporting her, and instead you go and try to tear her down._"

The words threaded on endless repeat in his head, and in counterpoint to them he heard Santana's_ "You didn't do a thing to try to make her feel better, did you?"_, Puck's _"you know you were an idiot to let her go like that, right?"_, and finally, over and over and over, Rachel's icy _"Is that what you _really_ think?"_, _"This is me, backing off,"_ and, like a bell tolling out the end of a song, _"I'm going, and I won't be looking back."_

Over and over and over, the images and words kept replaying, with Finn's level of exhaustion increasing in direct proportion to his inability to fall asleep.

Finally deciding there was one thing he _could_ do right away, he stretched out his arm to his nightstand and grabbed his phone. It wouldn't assure him of any answers tonight, but it would set things in motion for getting answers tomorrow; maybe, if he took some action-any action at all-his brain would finally shut down and he could rest. First he set the alarm on the phone to its "busy Saturday" setting (better than his "school day" setting, much better than his "early sports practice" setting, much worse than his "I can sleep all day if I want to because I have a totally free day with nothing I have to do" setting), and then sent a quick text message to Kurt.

_#We need 2 talk. Rt away 2morrow. Call me in A.M.#_

Finn was fully aware that he wouldn't get a response back until morning; he knew his mom was right: Kurt would have forced himself to get to sleep early tonight. Probably, Finn thought, with the aid of a glass of warm milk. Which made Finn start to wish that Kurt was at home to bring _him_ a glass of warm milk, because warm milk was just the type of soothing drink he could use after a day like this, especially when he couldn't get to sleep. He was beyond the point of being able to get up and make it for himself, but if Kurt were here he could not only have the milk but he could get the answers he needed from his brother.

Kurt always wanted to talk for a while at "milk time," and for the most part it was Kurt who did the talking. Talking about himself wasn't really Finn's thing as a general rule, and this was even more true since Sectionals and Santana's spilling the beans and Rachel's confession and . . . well, it was just easier not to think about it or to talk about it, not with Kurt or with anyone.

Kurt never appeared to be bothered by Finn's silence; he usually had plenty to say for himself. It was another way that Kurt was like Rachel. Finn wondered, when they were hanging out, how they decided who got to do the talking. Like Rachel, Kurt could go on for hours about the wonders of a Broadway star or the mistakes made in a musical number or a particularly offensive fashion choice made by someone appearing on TV or walking the halls of the school.

From what his mom said, it sounded like the recent theme of his brother's conversations around the house had all been variations on the prom. It was weird, Finn thought, that Kurt had never said a word to him about it. Not once, not at all, in the past several weeks, even though it involved Kurt's favorite things: music, fashion, and making an appearance.

Finn started to feel a little guilty; maybe Kurt thought he wouldn't be interested, and so hadn't bothered to say anything. After all, aside from that one time when he asked Kurt about prom transportation, Finn hadn't raised the subject on his own. Frankly, he got enough around the clock prom talk from Quinn; he kind of enjoyed getting a break from it when he could.

But that didn't make avoiding the topic with Kurt right; after all, Finn had always known that prom would matter a lot to Kurt, and it was probably even more important to him now that he was in a relationship and could bring his boyfriend as his date. Finn remembered, way back when they were first getting to know each other in glee club, how he'd thought Kurt was inviting him to the dance, and how surprised he'd been when Kurt had instead asked for his help getting on the football team.

Not in his wildest imagination would Finn have ever thought on the day of Kurt's football "audition" that they'd end up as brothers and that Kurt would become one of the most important persons in his life. Being in glee club had changed-well, not everything, Finn supposed, because he was still (once again) the quarterback; he was still (once again) dating Quinn. But it _felt _like almost everything that mattered most-his family, how he thought about himself, his dreaming about his future-had changed since glee and Kurt and Ra-well, since New Directions had become a part of his life.

Finn promised himself that he was going to be better in the future about talking to Kurt. He wouldn't just wait for Kurt to start the conversations-he'd make an effort to ask about his brother's life, to find out how things were going with Blaine, and to basically make sure he was up to speed with Kurt's feelings and concerns.

He figured that he had kind of sucked at this whole 'being a brother' thing so far. Sure, Kurt had left McKinley and the glee club when he went to Dalton, but it's not like he'd left Finn's life-just the opposite, since they were part of an honest-to-God family now, sharing the same house and parents and everything. And the fact that Finn's own life had fallen apart right after their parents' marriage was no excuse for him not to keep the promise he made at the wedding reception-to have Kurt's back, no matter what it took. That meant more than just jumping into a beat down to prevent bullying, Finn realized; it meant being there for Kurt, being someone his brother could rely on, someone to talk to about both problems and the good things that happened.

After tomorrow night, things should get back to normal again; the prom would be over, the endless campaigning would finally be at an end, and making time to hang out with Kurt was one of the ways Finn was going to use all of the free time that was about to open up for him. And he'd make himself find a way to do it, even though he knew it could be complicated with Kurt spending so much time these days with Rachel . . . .

Finally drifting into sleep, Finn was finally beyond feeling any agitation at the thought of her. He found himself imagining Kurt in his element as he helped the glee girls get ready for the prom, picturing him running around with a comb in one hand and some of his super-strength hairspray stuff in the other, snapping at anyone who let a lock or a lash slip out of place. He could almost see Lauren ignoring Kurt, Tina laughing at him, and Mercedes telling him to chill and back off.

And Rachel . . . he wondered how Kurt would make Rachel look; if he'd put her hair up or let it flow down; if it would be curled in waves or shiny and straight and smooth. He pictured Kurt fixing Rachel up to look like that old-time movie actress she and Kurt gushed about-the one in all those really old movies they'd made him watch, including the one about the princess who pretended to be a normal girl for a day so she could escape from the palace and experience real life, and the one where she lived in New York City and ate her breakfast while looking in the windows of a jewelry store, and the (of course) musical one where she started out speaking and singing one kind of English and ended up speaking and singing another kind, which was weird, because there was only one English language. Yeah, her look would be almost beautiful enough for Rachel to copy, but it wasn't really necessary for her to imitate someone else. Rachel would look beautiful no matter what, and . . . .

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"_No dude, that lipstick clashes with your nail polish; pick a softer pink."_

"_What do you mean, jerkwad? They're both pink, aren't they? Pink's pink." _

_Exasperated, Finn turned to his brother, hoping that Kurt could talk some sense into Puck before he ruined his outfit. Kurt was muttering about how difficult it was to do anything out of the ordinary in styling a Mohawk because there was so little hair to work with, saying that Sam's hair, in contrast, gave ample room for artistic expression. _

_"Kurt-hey, Kurt! Talk some sense into Puck, would'ya?" Finn called out, continuing "Mike, please, man, show me how to walk in these heels without stepping on and ripping my hem, okay? This song is great, but I'll spend the whole dance sprawled on the floor if I can't get the hang of moving in them!"_

He woke himself up with his words, dazed and disoriented, hearing the song from his dream coming from his bedside table as he looked around and tried to figure out where Puck in his pink gown, Mike in emerald green, Sam in royal blue, and Artie in orange had disappeared to.

With slowly dawning horror, Finn realized that his last semi-coherent thoughts of the night before had translated themselves in his sleep from dreaming about the girls getting ready for prom into Kurt styling the glee guys in girls' dresses. Hastily trying to banish the image of his friends' attire and his own outfit from his mind-_like I'd ever wear mint green, _Finn thought; _I'd totally go with a classic black with silver accents_-Finn grabbed his phone to turn off the alarm, pushed himself out of bed, and stumbled to the bathroom. Before beginning to brush his teeth, he checked his messages, and saw that one had come in from Kurt.

_#No time to talk. Full-on fashion formation is happening! M, R, T, & L all lined up & waiting. Whatever it is will have 2 wait til tomorrow. Phone going off; can't interrupt an artist at work.#_

_Dammit!_ Finn thought, slamming his hand on the bathroom counter, and then "OH DAMMIT!" he yelled out loud, feeling a fresh wave of pain shooting through his hand once more. _Gotta stop _doing _that!_, he told himself; it only ever led to bad things.

Worse than the pain in his hand, though, was Kurt's message. Finn didn't know what he could do to get Kurt to talk to him today. This wasn't something that could be handled in text messages or over the phone; he needed to see his brother in person to explain what had gone down yesterday and to get some answers.

It wasn't like he could go find him where he was; Kurt was at Rachel's house and that was the last place Finn was likely to be welcome today. Since Kurt had turned his phone off, Finn couldn't even send a message saying how urgently he needed to talk to his brother; if he tried to contact Kurt via one of the other girls, Rachel was sure to find out. After her demanding that he back off and stop playing with her yesterday, Finn wasn't going to be the one to look like he was invading her space, not even by calling someone else at her house.

It's like Kurt was walled off in a Rachel Berry guarded fortress and Finn couldn't think of a way to breach the walls. He knew it would be useless to try to get anything more out of Puck; he'd said that he had made a promise not to say anything, and yeah, for all of his (many, many, many) faults, Finn knew that Puck did keep his promises.

Maybe, Finn thought as he squeezed some toothpaste onto his brush, some of the other glee guys knew what was going on. He could try calling Mike or Artie; it wasn't like they'd be spending the whole day primping and getting ready before going over to meet the others at Rachel's house. As the sharp minty flavor helped Finn feel even more awake, his brain, finally rested, started to kick into gear. He'd be sure to call them-he'd start with Mike, just in case Artie was with Brittany and Santana was nearby to overhear his call-long before time for them to head to the Berrys', and . . . .

It was like a piece of the puzzle had finally snapped into place; he all of a sudden realized what was causing him so much confusion last night when his mom was talking to him about Kurt's plans for the prom. Finn even glanced quickly in the mirror to see if a light bulb had popped into view over his head like it did in the cartoons. Nope; no light bulb, but the thing that sounded so wrong last night was finally clear.

His mom had said that Kurt was at Rachel's so they could spend the day tomorrow getting ready for the prom. His mom seemed to think that everyone in the glee club was going to Rachel's house, either to get ready for the prom or to have dinner there and then go on to the dance together. 

_But why would they do that when Rachel wasn't even going to the prom? _When she was going to this other, anti-prom thing? If Rachel _wasn't _going to the prom, what was this whole gathering at her house about?

He didn't think she'd have lied to him about not going, because he'd be sure to see her when she arrived and a lie would be pointless. Unless she _was_ going with Puck after all to try, once more, to make him jealous, and had lied so that he'd be taken by surprise?

But that meant Jacob's story was totally wrong, and while Finn hated the little-better-than-gossip site that Jacob ran, his information was usually right; that's why it caused so much damage. Besides, why would Lauren be at her house to get ready if Rachel was going with Puck. And Puck and Lauren were still running for prom court, right? He hadn't heard them campaigning recently, but he'd been so focused on his and Quinn's efforts that he hadn't spent much time paying attention to the competitors' efforts.

Was the "big thing" Rachel was doing letting her house be used as a beauty salon for Kurt to have total control in, and then putting on a glee dinner for the others before they went out? Rachel had a big room and bathroom with space for them all to get fixed up in, and she already had the girly stuff there that they'd need to get ready.

It would be like Rachel, even if she wasn't going to go to the prom, to help out by offering her place to Kurt and Mercedes and Tina and Lauren. And he could even see her putting on a dinner to try to build up team spirit, and maybe to help Sam out since he probably couldn't afford to take a date out to dinner with his family's financial situation. (_Who was Sam going with? _Finn realized that Kurt's plans weren't the only ones he was unaware of; just like he hadn't thought that Rachel might not be going, he had no idea of who Sam and Mercedes might be taking to the prom. He really had been out of touch with the people all around him for a while now, Finn realized.)

Probably none of them cared that she was doing this Loser's Ball thing because it wasn't really aimed at people like them-it was aimed at Cheerios and jocks and the popular kids. And it didn't seem like Sam or Mike, or Puck, for that matter, had cared about their popular kid status for a while now; neither did Brittany or Santana, since leaving the Cheerios. Finn couldn't remember the last time anyone in glee, besides himself and Quinn, had acted like they cared in the slightest about how the school viewed them anymore-all they were focused on these days was preparing for Nationals and making glee the best it could be.

Finn knew there was still a lot he didn't understand about all this. It was too much to believe that Puck, and especially Santana, would attack him (Puck wouldn't do that without what he felt was a good reason) and defend Rachel (Santana wouldn't do that without a _really_ good reason) merely because Rachel was letting people dress up at her house and feeding them before they went on to the prom, leaving her to do her anti-prom message-stunt thing. He still needed answers.

Finishing up his teeth and heading downstairs to the kitchen, Finn pulled up Mike's number on his phone and hit send; he was going to figure this out, and the sooner the better.

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End file.
